and i while i was doing it, i noticed something surprising.
i work really hard. i spend a great deal of my life at work. but work only came up in my e-mails on a few occasions.
and those were only mentions of how mom loved liz, or how i cried at my desk, or how i kept it together until liz came around the reception desk and gave me a hug when i came back to the office after that first month away.
and work is grueling. but they were amazing to me in october. and they were incredibly supportive when i went back east to care for mummy in november and december and for maura and missy in january.
but when i look over my life as i recorded it over the past few months...work was so incredibly unimportant.
i knew this...but i didn't understand it as well as i do now.
which is not to say that i don't value my job.
because when i look back through the e-mails i sent, and listen to my saved voicemails, i find how much my work has meant to me over the years in the names of the people who i call my best friends.
lisa, who talked me down when i learned that the cancer was in mummy's brain, and who (with her beautiful daughter, molly and son eric) gave me respite from the battle on more than one occasion, was an AE on nissan when I was an assistant print producer at chiat/day in los angeles.
cat — who left me messages of love and helped me with everything from dealing with the fear, to managing the estate paperwork, to finding the baby monitor — was an art buyer with me at chiat/day in los angeles.
vanesa, who promised mom many years ago that she would "spring her" if we ever put her in a nursing home (and who, along with her beautiful daughter carmen, left "smoochies" on my voicemail), worked with me at chiat in l.a. , was my roommate when i was at chiat in new york, and worked with me again at chiat in san francisco.
pen, who sent me e-mails of support and sent mummy a picture of his two gorgeous daughters with a sign with mummy's name inside a giant heart, was an account supervisor on nissan when i was at chiat in los angeles.
carisa, who shared so much of her own stories with me about the loss of her mother, and who constantly reminded me to live in the moment when mummy was still here, and who ran the san francisco marathon while holding my mom in her heart, worked with me at chiat in los angeles and then again in san francisco.
gabrielle, who wrote me cards and letters of support and wrote even more cards and letters directly to my mother, worked with me at chiat in los angeles.i look around my closest circle of friends and so many of them, like victoria and darcy and analisa (and, by extension, quinci) are people who i met through work.
so, while i didn't find my work important enough to mention in my e-mails over the past few months, my work has given me incredible gifts in the people it has brought into my life.
work is pretty rough right now. it was not fun today...but i do have so much hope for the future. and whether that comes to fruition or not, i know that i have already added some of the people that i currently work with to the list of people that i will hold in my heart forever.
joni selflessly took on a lot of extra weight so i could make mummy my first priority. i will never forget that.
and when i came back after mummy died, i told liz that i had been disappointed that i was unable to get a gospel choir for mom's funeral. she was surprised to hear that mummy loved gospel music. she shared with me the name of a song that had helped her through when she lost her own mom.
when i came in the next morning and listened to my messages, i discovered that she had played the whole song into my voicemail sometime the night before.
so work is what i do. and in the grand scheme of things it is both nothing and everything.
