My Return to Work: Part 2

My original plan was to go back to work and not take any customer meetings at first. I watched how Jordan eased back in; he started with internal meetings, gradually increasing how many he could handle each week. We talked about how difficult it would feel to get out of our bubble of early grief and back into the real world, feeling our way through and learning how to live in a new normal.

I wasn’t sure how I would fare back at work, though thankfully my workplace was still in the comfort of my home. I hadn’t stepped into my office often after Nathan’s death because we were preparing it to be our baby’s room, the nursery. Before my first day back, we changed the orientation of my desk and moved the other furniture. I was very thankful that we hadn’t yet set up the crib and that most of my decor was still in place. It was emotional and difficult, but the space still felt like mine.

I remember a friend of mine checking in, and when she heard I was going back to work, she said that we’d be in a place “where not everyone gets it, not everyone gets to know, and where you and Jordan have to navigate it on your own.”

The idea that “not everyone gets to know” stuck with me. After I was told that my workplace had shared the detailed personal update about my loss company-wide, I no longer felt fully in control of who had access to my story. On my first day, I answered a few Slack messages from colleagues welcoming me back and put all my attention into supporting a new team member who had joined while I was away.

Even with additional support in place, I felt daunted by what needed to be rebuilt after eight weeks away. Many of my projects needed their context and momentum restored when I returned. I did my best to bridge the eight-week gap, help clarify project status, and support the transition of the work. In the end, I had my first customer meeting on my second day back. The transition was not yet complete, and leading those meetings myself created the least disruption for the customer.

Before we had time to find a rhythm together, the staffing plan changed again. Suddenly, I was not only returning to my own work and relationships, but also trying to manage another transition while carrying my own raw grief.

No one asked me to call my boss while I was in labour and continue working after my son's premature birth.

No one asked me to handle administration during my leave to make sure customers were taken care of, my meetings were transitioned, and work accounts reflected that I was out of office for a personal emergency.

No one asked me to help customers on the first vacation days after returning.

No one asked me to care that much, but I did.

When I was on bereavement leave, I had been told not to worry, but I knew how much context lived with me and how quickly loose ends could accumulate during an unexpected absence. I knew I would eventually have to return, and I was trying to protect myself from having to sort through all of it when I did.

The work was still there when I returned from bereavement leave, and so was the part of me that enjoyed working and wanted the best for my customers. I was grieving, but I was willing.

I came back to work that still needed me without feeling like the workplace had been there for me. 

Something had shifted. When I came back and saw that the customer relationships I had cultivated felt distant after my time away, I felt deflated. I did not have the same stamina to offer the same loyalty when my experience while grieving had changed my relationship with the workplace in a way I could not reverse.

I have always been an employee driven by purpose, momentum, and commitment. I still am that employee. What had changed was the trust underneath everything I was being asked to give to my workplace. The illusion that I could step back into the same relationship with work, after everything I’d gone through and the ways my experience with work had added to my grief, had burst.

Customers told me how happy they were that I was back and said they hoped I was feeling better after my medical leave. I couldn’t bear to refer to “my time away” or “my leave” in such an indirect, watered-down manner.

I communicated to my company’s leadership team that it was a horrible, horrible, horrible time away. It had not been a restorative leave or an absence after which I could be expected to feel better. I could not meet people’s enthusiasm about my return. I should have been on maternity leave. The disconnect was heart-rending.

I had multiple feedback conversations with leadership about “lessons learned” from how I experienced the company’s bereavement support. Yet, even when I was back, I continued to need to be vocal about the impact and what support looked like in practice.

At my first leadership meeting, I paused the conversation about numbers and planning to acknowledge that it was my first meeting back. I had talked about milestone dates, including the fact that the week I returned was around my original due date. Some coworkers I felt personally close to acknowledged those dates, but there was no coordinated, HR, or leadership recognition of my baby’s original due date or Father’s Day, even with clumsy words, or of how those marker dates might affect me and my family.

I was the person carrying the grief, setting the guidelines, and experiencing the discomfort of raising it in the virtual room.

I knew sending a Slack message ahead of my first day back would be helpful and necessary. People thanked me for sharing how they could best support me. The responses I received left me with the sense that people were unsure what to say, whether to reach out, and whether any coordinated support was being offered. Without clear direction, it felt as though people were left guessing what to say, what not to say, whether to reach out, whether to give space, and whether someone else had already done the caring on behalf of the company.

I had to stand up for myself at work. I was learning to recognize and name what I needed, explain what others could not see, and help people understand how to support me without making things worse. To me, workplaces have a responsibility to do something with those cues.

I wasn’t looking for expertise in grief or perfect language. It could have looked like one person taking responsibility for regular check-ins to see how I was coping, separate from project updates. It could have meant preparing direct reports and coworkers for my return. Before I sent my own Slack message to say I was coming back to work, the only company-wide communication I knew about was when my detailed personal update about Nathan’s death was shared.

It could have been action to change the plan when I repeatedly said that I was not ready to be back. Apologies acknowledged that my experience had not gone well, but workplace care in practice could have meant pausing my return, explicitly reminding me that going back on leave was an option, and helping me take that step rather than leaving me to identify and initiate every possible solution myself. In hindsight, I did not have the capacity, and I needed someone within the workplace to recognize that option, raise it with me, and help me act on it.

I had shared my feedback before I returned. I had written a message to my team in my own words. I had set expectations for how I wanted people to interact with me. Once I was back, I kept calling attention to what was hard and what had not landed.

One day, a colleague asked how I was feeling, and I said, “weary.” Being precise about that word mattered to me. I was not unwilling to work and had hoped it would be a welcome distraction. I was exhausted by the combined labour of living with my grief and repeatedly translating that grief at work. The problem wasn’t that I felt silenced or unsure about voicing my concerns. The problem was that saying it, explaining it, and preparing people still did not create a return that felt supported or sustainable. 

After 28 working days, I sent my notice. Resigning was not a rejection of work. It was an acknowledgment that the return to this particular workplace was requiring more from me than I could keep giving.

Afterwards, the idea of disappearing from my customers did not sit right with me. I also wasn’t sure how my workplace would explain my departure or what might be shared on my behalf this time. It felt important to tell my story in my own words, not just to my internal colleagues, but also to the customers I had worked so hard to build relationships with and support in their initiatives.

I communicated my departure with a content warning in the subject line to give my customers control over whether or not they wanted to read my personal update. I shared a short version of my story and let them know that the experience had changed the direction I felt called to take my work, particularly in connection with pregnancy and infant loss awareness and advocacy.

I shared the draft with my boss and worked through it with him but stayed true to my words and message: I wanted to share the news about my son’s birth, his death, and how his life has forever changed what I believe care at work should look like.

Not everyone will decide to share their loss so publicly. Not everyone gets access to the most intimate parts of your story. Not everyone gets to know.

Through my conversations, people met my honesty with their own. Some colleagues and customers chose to share their own experiences of loss with me. Talking about Nathan did not make the relationships less professional; it made them more human. One customer told me that they admired the courage it took to step back and reflect when the situation no longer felt congruent with what I needed.

I could not undo how my story had been handled, and I could not make the return feel less painful. I mourned leaving a role where I knew I was making an impact and having to make another major life change while I was already grieving. Still, it was important for me to decide how I wanted to remember my son, who I wanted to share our story with, and what I wanted my experience moving forward to be.

What made my experience especially difficult was that I was not distant from the people making decisions around my leave and return. I worked closely with leadership and remained in regular communication while I was on bereavement leave. There was room for more direct, human conversation and less reliance on assumptions about what I needed. In the end, I feel that how a workplace cares during absence and how they support you when you return is what truly shapes whether you can stay.

Leaving my workplace was the right decision for me, and I recognize the privilege of being able to do so. The opportunity to share my story and Nathan’s allowed me to connect with my colleagues and customers in ways I did not expect. My hope is that sharing my experience helps more employers become grief-literate and more bereaved parents return to workplaces that are prepared to respond with care.