Learning From Loss

I've never written about this here on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is for business right? I tell people that frequently during social selling training sessions that I give, although it is usually when describing their profile photos. This is very personal, but I want to share it here. I see people experience loss in their personal and business lives, and we can't really separate them.

14 years ago today it was a crisp November afternoon. I was doing some organizing in the basement. My extended family was upstairs doing various things. I don't know what caught my attention, a sound, a smell? I looked up and there was a haze of dust towards the ceiling. Wait, that's not dust, that's smoke...

I dropped what I was doing and went out to the other part of the basement and saw fire and smoke. I ran upstairs yelling for everyone to get out. Much of what happened then is a blur. I seem to remember my sister-in-law calling 911 on the phone. As I ran out with my children, I noticed they were in their socks, not shoes.

There was commotion as my now ex-husband went to the back of the house and the firemen wouldn't let him go back in. It turns out my father-in-law went back for his coat. At least that's what we think happened. He did not make it out.

As we stood outside, my neighbors encouraged us to come to their house. Suddenly Officer Tony was there to be with my kids. He was the Police Department liaison to the schools. Everyone knew him. We were all in shock and the next few hours, days, perhaps even weeks, were a bit of a blur.

So it's 14 years later.

I would never have wanted to go through something like this, but I did. Looking back, I also learned so much from it.

I learned that stuff is just stuff

When you lose practically everything, you realize what you can do without. A fireman grabbed a pile of photographs and gave them to a neighbor that was nearby. Photographs, before the days of everything online, are really the only thing you can't replace and even now, I find myself being in the moment and experiencing whatever I am doing rather than documenting it.

I learned that sometimes you have to accept help

My town is truly amazing. The people of Port Washington clothed, fed, housed, and hugged us until we were back on our feet. The owner of the local shoe store heard my kids ran out without shoes and because we shopped there he knew our sizes. New shoes appeared on our doorstep. We didn't know about how it all happened, but dinner arrived at our door each night until we put the word out that we were ready to handle that. People gave us duplicates of photographs, more clothes than I knew what to do with, and books (my kids were avid readers) arrived from our local bookstore. Groups throughout town had bake sales and raised money. This was the hardest thing to accept as a gift, but then someone very wise said to me, "This is just as much for them. They want to help. Let them."

I learned that everyone grieves in their own way

My children got to decide if they wanted to share what happened with their classmates and they did or didn't in their own way. I noticed that some of us retreat into a shell and some of us like to communicate. I noticed that I wanted to be active and doing things, when I wasn't overwhelmed with exhaustion, perhaps to feel like I had some measure of control over my life.

I learned that loss can be a lesson

Of course, I have experienced other losses since then, and will throughout my life. That is part of life. I've learned that in truly tragic or large losses like the loss of a life, a marriage, a job, and those from a fire... we can be like a phoenix, rising again into something better, someone better. I would never ask for loss in my life, but feel stronger, wiser, and kinder for having gone through it.

When I lost a job back in 2010 I went through a transformation that resulted in starting my own business. I would never have taken the perceived risk to leave a job to do it, but now I look at the loss of that job as an opportunity. I was reminded again, that people want to help. I was introduced to an amazing group of people in my networking group that inspired, supported, and believed in me. I absolutely love what I do and am so grateful for the lessons I learned along the way.

I remember a thought I had when I was a teenager. I was walking down the street where I lived. The sun was shining through the trees making a pattern along the sidewalk. Some spots were all sun and some all shade. Some were a mix, as the breeze moved the leaves around. I remember thinking that life is like that. Some of life is sunny and wonderful, some is dark, and some is a mix of both. The key, I thought, was to look far enough away to see that whatever spot you are in now, there are other spots ahead.