Yet again, when it rains, it pours. With our emotions still raw from last week’s loss of my ex mother-in-law, I had a dream that the hubby had lost his job. It was so out of the blue, and so ridiculous a thought, that I quickly dismissed it and did not relate it to him. I received a call from the hubby as I was leaving work two evenings ago, asking me if I was on the way home. It sounded as if something was wrong. I asked and he proceeded to tell me that he was already home, having been just been laid off. I was shocked. I was numb. I was terrified.
Here we go again. This time, it’s not me, but I feel it all over again. He is still in the foggy state of shock that comes first after a layoff that was so unexpected. He is dealing with that first “What do I do with myself when I wake up in the morning?” The grief stage will come next, accompanied by the anger, though some of that is already seeping in as he begins to absorb the situation.
He was given a fair compensation package… three months salary and benefits as well as a career consultant’s expertise to work with him through the rebuilding of his resume and new job search. No complaints there, and certainly a far cry from the very unfair 1 week’s salary and immediate cutoff of benefits compensation that I received when I was laid off a year ago. What he was not given, however, was fair notice. He worked a full day as a trusted employee. His manager asked to speak to him to “review a few things” at about 3:30. When he approached his manager at the appointed time, he was asked to “Walk with me”, and taken to a room where this outsourced career-counseling woman was sitting. His manager spent all of 45 seconds with him, saying, “Here, read this. [Handed him his departure papers…] Effective immediately, your position is being terminated due to budget constraints, and you will need to grab everything from your desk and leave the building.” He was escorted to his desk, no longer the trusted employee he’d been 5 minutes before where there was a box waiting on his desk for him to pack his things into.
3.5 years of dedicated and constant employment, with overtime on a daily basis, and he suddenly is left feeling as though he was made out to be a criminal. I don’t suppose there is any “good” way to perform the nasty deed of letting an employee go, whether it’s for performance reasons or budgetary reasons. But there is something to be said for treating someone who has given you nothing but faithful service with a reasonable amount of dignity under those difficult circumstances. The irony is that although he worked with technology, he didn’t work in the sometimes heartless technology sector. The company that laid him off is a social services agency, where employees are presumably like family. With family like that who needs enemies?
With our good health, our love for each other and perspective on the importance of family above all, we are climbing back onto the Downsize roller coaster. Stay tuned...
She’s gone. After a long, hard few years, and an especially difficult last few months; my ex mom-in-law has passed on. She fought the courageous fight, and yet she lost her battle. But she lost it with grace, dignity and quietly at home, surrounded by her family. We take comfort in the fact that she is at peace now and her suffering is over. We know that her father, and other friends and family who were waiting on the other side to lead her to her eternal home welcomed her with open arms. We know she is an angel looking out for all of us from on high.
It’s been a tough week… so many emotions so close to the surface. There is so much ambiguity… we mourn her passing and yet we are comforted by the fact that her pain is gone. We long to have her back – so many things unsaid… As my 16 year old said, through her river of tears, “I had so much I wanted to tell her while she was still listening, but saying it would have been admitting that she was leaving us and I just couldn’t do that.” So much insight at such a tender age..
I marvelled at the courage and strength of so many friends and family. Though they were grieving in the last few days, hours and minutes of her life, as we knew the end was approaching, they maintained the ability to speak softly and calm her, comforting her as she breathed her last few breaths. We all took turns holding her hand, reminding her how much we loved her, trying to give her the strength to take that last step and leave in peace, knowing that we would all take care of each other when she did..
I gave up through the hours of visitation and the funeral, in trying to explain our relationship. I finally found a line that worked for me. “I was her daughter-in-law, and when the son left the family, I stayed.” My ex-father-in-law thought it was a great line. My husband was a pallbearer, which more than expresses the nature of the relationship we had with my ex-in-laws. Every time he walks anywhere near my ex-father-in-law, he is greeted with a hug and a “Hey Son”. Doesn’t that say it all?.
Although my daughter’s father showed his face briefly throughout the week, it was my husband who comforted our daughter’s tears, and sheltered her from having to spend any time alone with the man who bears only biological responsibility for his child. When her father approached her awkwardly (after over 2 years of no contact with her) and stumbled over trying to tell her how beautiful she has become and the like, she politely nodded and thanked him, as she would have any stranger, which is pretty much how she regards him. While she used to refer to him as “Daddy”, he has now become “My father”..
Life is strange. But one thing we have learned to be true is that family is what holds life together. We cherish our families, both immediate and extended..
