Tragedy Breeds...

Sadness... Anger... Questions... Grief... Doubt...

Tragedy can also yield compassion, sacrifice, leadership, bonding, strength, change, faith and much more... I saw these things up close and personal this week as the group I support as an HR generalist lost a teammate in a terrible and senseless domestic violence-related death.

Melissa was killed in the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex by her estranged husband, who then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. Nothing can prepare you for being pulled out of an otherwise-normal team meeting with a business team leader to be told this kind of news by the person's manager. But that's where I found myself Tuesday morning...

My emotions ran high all week, but particularly on Tuesday, as we struggled through how to deal with this issue... How and when do we inform and support our other employees? What is appropriate for us to say and do and what's not? What are our legal responsibilities? What should we do about her office? Are there any other security concerns to think about? How can we help people through this and hold up ourselves while we do?

While I didn't know Melissa, she was clearly a kind and fun person, a friend to many and a valuable contributor to the teams on which she worked.

I've had so many thoughts going through my head this week... What can I learn from this -- b0th personally and professionally? I'm so grateful for my faith and knowledge of God's plan of happiness for us. That I know why we're here and where we go when we die. I'm so lucky to have a wife and children whom I love and trust and who love me in return. While I haven't distilled my thoughts into words or even firmly grasped the full spectrum of learning yet, I want to share one thing...

While I wish this never had happened, I'm so grateful to have gone through this experience with this team of people. Not just the HR team, but the entire business team we support as well and all those behind-the-scenes who helped those of us on the front line through it all. I saw the true greatness in many people come out into the open this week. The leader of Melissa's team was incredible. A very rational and analytical person by nature, I saw him demonstrate superb and admirable leadership, compassion, thoughtfulness and humanity in general. I learned much from him this week.

I saw employees offer each other support, being willing to set aside deadlines and take on more work to allow the most directly impacted team time to grieve and get through the first few days.

I also saw an HR team that had never gone through something like this (out of three people, two of us are brand new -- one of us three weeks and the other two days -- to the HR generalist role) pull together and draw on all the resources at their disposal, locked at the hip, to do something none of us would have been able to do alone. I also saw a team of people behind the curtain raise the bar in terms of providing largely unrecognized support that enabled us to do our jobs on the ground -- all without much, if any, of the expressions of sincere gratitude that we all received from our clients.

My prayers and thoughts are with the families of those who lost their loved ones this week and all those who knew and loved them...