Member-only story
Oh, look! There’s the elephant in the room!
Coming back to work after a personal tragedy.
The dreaded day was upon me.
I had exhausted all the generous grievance leave my CEO had granted. Never in my career had I taken such a long break from work. Being a workaholic and a high achiever, I had rarely taken holidays. Even when I had, I worked throughout the leave. Usually, after a break, I would be itching to go back to the busyness of an office, but this time, it was different.
I was broken and felt like a complete failure.
Getting off the bed with a heavy heart, I dragged my feet to work. I travelled up and down the elevator a few times, unable to step out on my office floor. Finally, I took a deep breath and entered the office, putting on a brave face, smiling at my colleagues.
The last time they had all seen me was when I was volunteering for the end-of-the-year Christmas party, heavily pregnant with my first child.
Two weeks before my date of delivery, two days before Christmas, I had a Stillbirth.
Completely devastated, I had refused to meet anyone post that incident. But clearly, the office folks knew my story. As I walked towards my cabin, most folks either smiled sympathetically or averted their eyes, scared to say the wrong…
