{"id":2380,"date":"2009-01-08T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2009-01-08T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifewithhappiness.com\/?p=462"},"modified":"2018-10-02T13:36:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T17:36:57","slug":"life-includes-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theexecutivehappinesscoach.com\/2009\/01\/life-includes-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Includes Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I learned just minutes ago that a good friend died yesterday.<br \/>\nShe was over a decade younger than me, and we had little in common except for our very broad and eclectic interests, an intense interest in curiosity about how people behave and a shared sense of (very dry) humor.\u00a0 And that was enough.<br \/>\nI first met Melissa in 1996, when I was seeking an HRIS (human resources information system) project manager.\u00a0 She was my first Generation X hire: cynical about corporate America, fiercely independent, adamant about work\/life balance&#8230; and incredibly tech-savvy.<br \/>\nShe was a lifelong learner &#8212; she possessed at least two Masters Degrees at the time, and in her short career she&#8217;d already built, run, and sold her own tech company.\u00a0 She was smart, creative, and knew about 100 times more than I did about technology.\u00a0 I was scared of her.\u00a0 And I desperately needed someone like her on my team.\u00a0 So we began a dance, she and I.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve actually told stories about Melissa on many a stage when speaking about the challenges of leadership and the issues of conflict between generational values.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s my favorite:\u00a0 She&#8217;d been on the job just a couple of weeks at this fairly conservative company.\u00a0 The norm was that everyone worked 8:30 till 5.\u00a0 Period.\u00a0 All parties had to be present during the standard work hours.\u00a0 And into my office walks Melissa, the new &#8220;kid.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;These hours just are not working for me,&#8221; she says.\u00a0 &#8220;I can&#8217;t get up this early!&#8221;\u00a0 I&#8217;m a mid-generation Baby Boomer, nose to the grindstone and all, and I was working for a boss who believed in form over substance.\u00a0 So what she was saying to me was&#8230; foreign.\u00a0 She was hitting me with something new: an employee who valued life balance AND who had the guts to speak up about it!\u00a0 I remember being incredibly stressed.<br \/>\nLet&#8217;s keep it short, tho.\u00a0 I took a couple more weeks to watch how she worked.\u00a0 She had a computer at home, and had figured out how to tie in to the systems from home (remember &#8212; this was 13 years ago, before Wi-fi and broadband) and was sending me emails and project updates at 2AM on Saturday or midnite on Wednesday.\u00a0 Clearly, she was working hard, just not on what we considered a Traditional schedule.<br \/>\nI knew my boss would never support an off-shift schedule (tho he later came around&#8230;).\u00a0 So we quietly shifted her hours so she didn&#8217;t have to arrive till 10:30.\u00a0 In exchange, she had to take the West Coast calls that used to go in to voicemail.\u00a0 In no time at all, our Seattle division fell in love with her, and by the time my boss found out, she had proven beyond all doubt her value to the company.<br \/>\nMelissa challenged me on many, many levels.\u00a0 She would listen to what I said, but then argue with me.\u00a0 She proposed radically different ideas that made my head hurt.\u00a0 And over the course of a couple years, she helped me become a much better leader.\u00a0 She forced me to become a better team player, a better collaborator, and a better negotiator.\u00a0 She also modeled a better approach to Life Balance\u00a0 than I&#8217;d seen before and taught me a TON about technology.\u00a0 (She is also partly responsible for my subsequent addiction to doing all my shopping on Amazon.com).<br \/>\nAfter I left the company to start my own firm, we stayed in touch via email several times a month for the past ten years, and occasionally I talked her into leaving the office so I could buy her lunch.\u00a0 A few months ago she put out a note about taking a medical leave of absence, and then&#8230; disappeared.<br \/>\nTwo weeks ago I received a holiday card from her with the following note:<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #0000ff\">&#8220;Life kinda exploded &amp; I got a bit overwhelmed, so I&#8217;m sorry if it seems like I disappeared from the face of the earth.\u00a0 Know, though, that I carry with me your friendship, and it has meant the world to me.\u00a0 Have a wonderful Christmas and a great 2009.&#8221;<\/span><br \/>\nI remember that the message gave me an odd feeling&#8230; what did she mean?\u00a0 Where was she going?<br \/>\nOn Monday, I sent her a note about getting together for lunch later in the month.\u00a0 I guess it&#8217;s a note she never read.<br \/>\nToday a mutual friend called to let me know that Melissa Joyce died suddenly yesterday.\u00a0 Too young.<br \/>\nI am sad, right now, thinking about how much I&#8217;ll miss her annual (and always unpredictable) contributions to my Summer Reading List.\u00a0 Who do I have, now, to introduce me to eccentric websites and odd British authors?\u00a0 Who will have the chutzpah to put me in my place when I&#8217;m being jerky?\u00a0 What will I do with all the cat jokes I used to send to Melissa? Sigh&#8230;<br \/>\nDeath, of course, is a part of life.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not talking about life after death&#8230; I&#8217;m talking about how, for those of us who remain behind, death is a part of what we must endure.\u00a0 People live, people die.\u00a0 Many people I&#8217;ve known and loved are no longer with us, so we work hard to keep their memories alive.<br \/>\nI choose to remember the happy ones, the memories that will make me smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I learned just minutes ago that a good friend died yesterday. She was over a decade younger than me, and we had little in common except for our very broad and eclectic interests, an intense interest in curiosity about how people behave and a shared sense of (very dry) humor.\u00a0 And that was enough. I &#8230; <a title=\"Life Includes Death\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/theexecutivehappinesscoach.com\/2009\/01\/life-includes-death\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Life Includes Death\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5789,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,40,50],"tags":[165,166],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Life Includes Death - The Executive Happiness Coach\u00ae<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/theexecutivehappinesscoach.com\/2009\/01\/life-includes-death\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Life Includes Death - The Executive Happiness Coach\u00ae\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I learned just minutes ago that a good friend died yesterday. 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