HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
When Grief Goes to Work
Host: Dr. Gloria Horsley
With guest: Tony Sims
June 8, 2006

G: Hello. I?m Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host Dr. Heidi Horsley. Each week, we welcome you to our show, Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and renewal for those who have suffered the loss of a child or a sibling. Well, this is an exciting show, Heidi, right? As this is our first year on air.
H: It is. I was just looking at the calendar the other day saying, oh, my gosh, Gloria has been on the air for one year. It?s gone fast, right, mom?
G: It has gone very fast and very slow. It seems like I?ve been on for a long time. I remember that first show. I was absolutely terrified on my phone by myself.
H: That?s so interesting that you said that ? it goes very fast and yet very slow because I think that speaks to the grief process as well. When we talk about how long it?s been since someone that we loved died, in some ways sometimes it seems like it?s been a long time and other times it seems like it?s been very slow and it?s just happened.
G: Yeah, like it?s only yesterday which some of our great emails speak to. I wanted to read three emails today, Heidi. Our first one is from Lorraine from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Your emails are so useful for us and so helpful to give us guidance on the show and we love to get them. We also love the fact when you say where you?re from so we can let people know on the show. So again this is Lorraine from Calgary, and Lorraine says:
I lost my 26-year-old son last August 18, 2005. You and your daughter?s show is wonderful. I?ve been working my way through the web archives. You do a wonderful service and it really helps me to keep perspective realizing that others are going through the same path.
G: Well, thanks, Lorraine. We really try to get a variety of people on our show so you have some commonality in the loss, you know, suicide, murder, terminal illness, all those kinds of things. We try to vary it around. These wonderful gifts and the things that they?ve done and how they?ve been through.
H: That?s why I like the archives. Number one, you can listen to them at your time and your own place whenever you want and also like you said, mom, you can use them as a reference and you can just go through and say, okay, you know what, this speaks to me or I want to know more about this topic or this is what I?ve been through and you can select who you want to hear and what topic you want to listen to.
G: And you can listen to them again. I?ve got people tell me they?ve listened to a show three times.
H: You can also rewind. On your computer you?ve got the little icon thing. I don?t know what it?s called, but you can go back and you can pause.
G: And you can fast forward through the ads.
H: I like that. You can fast forward, exactly.
G: So it?s a great thing. And you know that you go to our website www.healingthegrievingheart.org and you can download those shows on your Ipod also for people who have Ipod. That?s a great way to do that. We love to get your emails again through our website, www.healingthegrievingheart.org, and I want to remind you that these shows are all archived on www.healingthegrievingheart.org and www.thecompassionatefriends.org website. We also have transcripts of the shows for people that are hearing impaired and we also have something which is very nice right now. We have a demonstration CD with seven minutes of four different shows on it, and if you want to get one of those CDs, just email us through our website, www.healingthegrievingheart.org, and ask us to send you a demo CD. Make sure you give us your zip code, your address, and all those things to send it and we like to think that these CDs have legs so if you listen to it, you like it, and you have friends that you want to pass it on to who have lost children or need help, anyone who?s interested, pass it on. If you want to make copies of it and pass those on, that?s a great thing to do and we?re happy to have you do that.
H: In fact one of the people on the CD is Tony?s wife, Darcie.
G: Yeah, Darcie Sims, our guest today?s wife is on, Pat Loder is on, the Executive Director of Compassionate Friends, Heidi and I are on, and Father Al Johnson is on. It?s just really a wonderful CD. We?ll move on to the next email. This email is from Diane from Alabama. Diane says:
I loved the show last week with Sandy. [That?s our show last week with Sandy Goodman. That is the June 1 show if you want to tune in.] I?ve got to get her book now. I also enjoyed your suggestions regarding dealing with graduation. My Ashley would graduate next year and I?ve been trying to figure out how to deal with it. You guys are the greatest.
And then she asked for Sandy?s email which I emailed Sandy and gave her Diane?s email so I like to have our guests be able to make their decisions about what they do with their emails. One thing I want to say before we go on to one more email is that this is a live show today so you can call in. The number to call is 866-472-5792.
H: And I wanted to respond to that email, mom. There?s many things you can do to celebrate a graduation and I was wondering what you and dad did on Scott?s graduation day from high school because he had died the year before that.
G: I think we left town. We decided not to go to graduation and I believe we went out of town. Heather was 14 and I think we took her to New York.
H: And I was living in New York at that time, I think. I didn?t go to the graduation either. I decided not to go. And that?s okay. If you go, it?s okay, but if you decide you don?t want to go, that?s an option also.
G: Absolutely. This is a tough time of year with everybody getting ready to go to graduation and these events like Christmas and graduation and weddings and birthdays and things. One of the things I think you need to all remember out there is that these will be tough and recognize that and take care of yourself.
H: Absolutely. They will bring up the loss and you will see all their friends and that will bring up what you don?t have in your life, and you know, we had a situation where we had someone who had a twin and they had to go because the twin was graduating and so taking care of yourself while you?re there is important. Mom, I know you said, sitting on the end of a row.
G: Absolutely, so you can get up and leave. And graduation is a time when people do cry, so take a big hanky and people won?t think it?s that strange, even for a guy, if you?ve got some tears in your eyes. But if it?s really getting you, you need sometimes to get up quietly and remove yourself and come back to the situation. You can only do so much.
H: Absolutely. Graduation is so much a celebration of your sibling?s or child?s life and also a reminder of their death.
G: Well, here?s another email. Our last email today is from Dan, and it speaks a little bit to this time of year, the end of the school year. His son died by suicide five years ago. Dan says:
We gave out our last two scholarships for the school for our son in his memory this year at Amajillo High School in Fairfield, California. We met the grandmother who lost her grandson by drowning over last weekend who also attended Amajillo High School. It brought back memories of when Tony at the end of April had attended his band award?s party to give out our first scholarship. She came over to us and wanted to just give us a hug and we were able to give her comfort and hope, something I never thought I would be able to do. She raised the boy and you could tell she?s very lost right now as I remember at that point in time.
H: I think this speaks to the power of a hug from someone further along in the grief process than you. That is so powerful to see someone that?s survived this.
G: I?m also amazed when I read this email that they gave out a scholarship I think a few months after their son was killed five years ago.
H: Wow. I agree. To have it together enough to even think about doing something like that. It?s pretty unusual.
G: Yeah, it?s an amazing thing. Then Dan goes on to say:
I listened to your October 6 program this morning with Father Ruby and the mother who lost her son to suicide. I also called to get the newsletter from the priest. I hope he got my message.
So that?s great that again here his son died five years ago by suicide and he?s listening to a show, our October 6 show on that topic and is able to get comfort from that and get in touch with Father Ruby, so these archives are truly an amazing thing.
H: I love the way that they connect people.
G: Yes, absolutely, and people are able to connect. You can get in touch with Father Ruby and on most of the shows, we try to give people?s emails out and you can also feel free to get us through www.healingthegrievingheart.org. I was thinking, Heidi, just one last thing before we introduce our guest that people could do around graduation time is that they could create a Library of Life website for their child and let the friends know that there is that website and that they can go on and put messages and light candles on the website.
H: They can put poetry. That?s a great idea.
G: And it?s only $50 for a lifetime and if you want to take a look at mine, people have been going into our website, www.healingthegrievingheart.org, and then going on to Library of Life and you?ll see our website for Scott there and you can go in and light candles for him and leave us messages and make a comment about your own child. People have been doing it and it?s lovely. We love getting those. So, Heidi, would you like to introduce our guest today?
H: Sure. Today our topic is When Grief Goes to Work and our guest is Tony Sims. Tony is a bereaved parent, sibling, and child. He is a retired military officer, having served in both combat and peacetime operations. He has lead public and private corporations, including nursing homes and VA hospitals. Using his personal and professional experiences, he has developed programs to help the corporate world accommodate the needs of grieving employees. He has written policy, created responsive programs, and implemented grief support systems in both government and private sector. Tony has helped produce books, tapes, and other grief materials and is currently the Chief Executive Officer for Grief Inc. Tony, along with his wife, Darcie, and daughter, Allie, have helped thousands of grieving families by sharing their memories of the brief life of their son and brother, BIG A. Welcome to the show, Tony.
T: Hi.
G: Hi. It?s great to have you on the show today.
H: I?ve got to tell you, Tony, when I?m reading your bio, I smiled as soon as I read BIG A in capitals. I love that name.
T: Well, we called him BIG A because he was really very very small and so that was our little name for him so we actually started our company called BIG A and Company to publish Alicia?s books, that?s through our original efforts ? BIG A and Company.
G: Well, we?re going to have to go to break in just a minute. We don?t have enough time to talk too much about BIG A, but let?s talk about your company and then let?s talk about BIG A after break.
T: Okay.
G: You?ve got a company, Grief Incorporated.
T: Grief Incorporated grew out of the company BIG A and Company which started in 1986. It was originally started to publish our daughter?s book and it has grown and in 2000 we incorporated as Grief Incorporated and Grief Incorporated also owns the Grief Store, American Grief Academy, and we put Grief Stores into either funeral homes or standalone areas in various parts of the country so that books, videos, audios, and memorial items are available to people who are grieving and really don?t have the energy and knowledge and wherewithal to go out and find these things in the nooks and crannies where they might exist if they exist at all in that community.
G: That?s great. Well, we?re going on break now and we will pick up on that when we come back from break. We?re coming up on break. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and please stay tuned to hear more about When Grief Goes to Work and our guest is Tony Sims and you can join our show by calling our toll free number 1-866-472-5792. If you?d like to email us about this or upcoming shows, you can email us through our website, www.healingthegrievingheart.org. Stay tuned for more.
G: Tony, we were talking about BIG A. Could you talk about how you got into the grief field and about your son, BIG A.
T: Our son died in a military hospital. There was no support at that time especially in the military.
G: What year was this?
T: This was in 1975. There was no support and we were left to our own devices and we were in a location specifically because of the medical support and as soon as he died, then we no longer had need to be in that area so they sent me back to another base where I knew no one and no one knew our history so we were literally in the wilderness alone. And so we had to find our own ways to cope with that grief in an environment that was not supportive and so it was business as usual.
G: It?s so interesting, Tony, that that environment is not supportive because the Army has to deal with people dying all the time.
H: I guess I would wonder if the Army is like pick yourself up by your boot straps, suck it up, I don?t know.
T: Well, the armed forces are kind of unusual. When there is a death, like a combat death, you have a very formal short ceremony and the survivors are given death benefits, checks, and they used to be given 30 days to clear from quarters and then good-bye. The business about the military taking care of itself only applies to the military families taking care of each other because the military did not really accommodate that. They have improved very slightly over the past thirty or so years but not appreciably. It?s not noticeable from the outside.
G: Now, Tony, is that related to the fact that, what I?m thinking is, you don?t want to scare people. Death is not what you want to focus on. You want to focus on the heroism and taking care of our country and keep people moving and not dwell on negatives. Is that kind of why? Or is just time and money or what?
T: I know you?re sitting there writing a segue for me but it?s a perfect segue to the topic at hand which is that it?s disruptive to the workplace and so anything that?s disruptive to the work place is filtered out and we don?t think that accommodating that is going to be appropriate to the workplace which is really not correct because the most important and most expensive asset that any business has is invested in the people that serve the company. When we were working with Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky in teaching their managers grief in the workplace, the Chief Executive Officer was sitting down in front and he knew down to the penny how much it cost to bring a new entry-level employee on board before the first time they were productive. It was very easy for him to take that amount and compute, by saving those employees, how much it would cost to run a program and what the cost-benefit analysis would be without really getting into a computer. The cost of replacing a mid-level employee or a senior-level employee goes up exponentially and so it doesn?t take long to figure out that paying attention to these issues is of high importance because those employees, and here’s an axiom ? write this down, there?ll be a test later ? is that the employer can only expect employees to be as loyal to the company as they perceive the company to be loyal to them. With Toyota, they put a system together that helped people who were grieving the death of a family member.
G: Now how did they decide to do that? Were you involved or did they perceive that they needed it? How did that happen?
T: This actually occurred before we were involved. One of the things that occurred that actually I think was the impetus that caused this to actually come to fruition was that they had a senior vice president from Japan who came to visit the United States and he toured various plants. He was a guy that got down on the floor elbow to elbow with people who were working on the assembly line and because of that, people developed a personal connection with this guy. On one of his travels, the plane on which he was flying didn?t make its destination. They ended up with lots of grieving employees which got their attention. Then they started to put this together and only Toyota of Kentucky actually put this program into effect because they had the autonomy to do that and they put in this program they called outreach. At that time, it was under the human resources department and was sort of like the employee assistance program and it was connected in that way. When we were teaching the class,
G: Now how did you get into teaching it? Did they reach out to you or did you reach out to them?
T: Well, there was a network of connections that people ended up calling us and we went out and did it. Then we were teaching the class and, as I said, the CEO was in the front row and a blind guy was in the back row, and we were talking about using the services through the human resources department and the CEO in the front is nodding his head yes, this is a good thing. The guy in the back is saying no, we would never use that program because it?s like a stigma.
G: And then people might spend their time crying at work or something?
T: It reminded me of working with nuclear weapons in the military. I had a big thing in my medical record that said if for some reason I was in need of mental health issues or medication or whatever, then I was going to be grounded.
G: This was after BIG A died?
T: Right. But mental health services were never really available to people who were working with nuclear weapons or in high technical areas because it was just absolutely not something you would do, and this same kind of stigma was applying in this industrial complex and because of that, they moved it right under the Chief Executive Officer instead of in human resources so that it was understood that it was an appropriate thing to use which was a very effective thing for them to do.
G: So this was a way of empowering their employees who had children die and helping them move on rather than disabling them.
H: And normalizing therapy, right?
T: Well not necessarily therapy, but it was normalizing the process and recognizing that grief is occurring and that grief will be disruptive in the workplace, but supporting that employee makes that employee stronger, more loyal to the company,
G: I like that, loyal. I?m sure the company loves that loyal thing.
T: Well, because they now are feeling that they are more than just a number. They are meaningful enough that they have this program to support them.
H: And if you don?t support people through grief, you end up with employees who have health problems, that are missing work, productivity decreases and the bottom line is the company makes less money if that happens.
T: Well, there was another issue there, too. Toyota of Kentucky is non-union and they?re doing everything possible to attract their employees to stay non-union and stay working for them and an employee who works in a manufacturing area might be motivated to move to plant B for 20 cents an hour. If you tie all these intrinsic benefits together so that that employee feels like it?s better for them to stay there even if the money isn?t the same, you win.
G: Absolutely. That?s so interesting because as you know and as our guests know, out there, that first year at work is really, you?re probably not as productive but it takes a year to retrain anybody anyway.
T: Well, it does take quite a bit of time and different amounts of time depending upon the level of employee that you lose so the small amount of investment that is taken to support that person and make them feel comfortable through the process and give them those few things that they need, and they don?t need a lot.
G: What do they need? What do our folks out there ? they?ve been bereaved for two years ? what do they need from work? Or what do they need?
T: Most of the people need a supportive, healing environment where they feel comfortable talking about it or having a bad day if they need to, and they do have those days. Then they know that management is not going to make it an issue to them. You also need a little bit of flexibility because we have a wrong name for something. We have something in business that people call bereavement leave. Well, we need to erase that from all personnel manuals. All you personnel managers out there, get your eraser out and erase that out of the manual. It is really not bereavement leave. It?s funeral leave.
G: Let?s pick up on that point about what funeral leave is when we come back from break. What I also want to do when we come back, I want to talk about those newly bereaved people who aren?t feeling their working environment is supportive. Let?s try to give them some tips and ideas on what they might be able to do to help make some changes. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, with my co-host, Dr. Heidi Horsley. You can call in at our toll free number 1-866-472-5792 with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life.
G: When we went to break, you were talking about how it should be changed from bereavement leave to funeral leave, and could you expand on that and then I would like to move on to our folks who are out there who are working and they don?t feel this environment is working for them. How can we help them?
T: Some businesses have three days and some businesses like Toyota had changed it after our training to five days.
H: Wait, three to five days of bereavement leave, you?re saying.
T: Three days is sort of common. Five days is considered by many to be generous. They call it bereavement. But anybody that has ever been involved with grief knows that bereavement isn?t going to start until sometime later because first of all, it?s like putting on a wedding. You?re doing this in about three days. You end up being more of a host or hostess during this process than you do working on anything that looks like your own grief work. So this is just time to get all the many details done for all the people that came in from out of town and you put them all up and they?ve come to a ceremony and you?ve done all of this stuff and then all of a sudden they?re gone and you?ve got a house to clean because they?ve left all these dishes around.
H: And then the real grief work begins.
T: No, and then, you?re expected to go back to work. When our son died, I was in the armed forces and he died, and we had a funeral, and I actually got Friday off, Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday morning I went in and had an appointment with the general, and they sent me over on Tuesday, actually, on Monday I found out about the appointment, Tuesday I went to talk to the general, and they sent me in to talk to the vice commander and he put me on honors. So I was the officer who took the flag from the pit crew and walked over my son?s grave every day for about three months. This was supposed to be helpful to me in working through my grief. And every day I put on the super sharp shiny spit and polish uniform to go to the cemetery, I would first start by throwing up. It was not a real healing environment. But you start your grief work much later on. That is when an employer has an opportunity to make a good impression. First of all, in Toyota, for instance, they are standing by you and helping you through this process. They have somebody there. They bring you baskets to help you out. They?ll do things like help you go shopping. They?ll help you do lots of things that you hate and each one of them is individually tailored to your need at the time. It?s not like there?s a cookie cutter out there. Cookie cutter is not caring.
G: Okay, now what can people out there who are at work now and it?s not supporting them, what do you suggest?
T: Well, first of all, what they do, though, is they go through this process and then after the funeral, they are there to help out and they also will be an intermediary to help you to be sure that you get use of your sick leave and your annual leave for the time that you need to have a personal day to deal with this stuff knowing that you might not be 100% productive following this because of your attention span, because you?re grieving, and all of those sorts of things. So it?s more supportive that way. If you are in an environment that does not support you, good luck.
H: That?s most.
T: One of the things you could do is to train your employer starting with your supervisor in grief. And that?s a really tough thing because we don?t deal with grief until it?s upon us and that?s not a really good time for us to learn an extremely complex coping skill, and it?s really not a good time to learn how to be an educator and to teach our supervisor how to cope with us.
G: What would you say to somebody, what are the small things they could say to their supervisor now that may teach them a little bit on how to treat them? I?m thinking one of the things they might be able to say to them is that I sometimes may have to sit by the door and leave a meeting. I mean, is it possible to say something like that?
T: Well, if you have a good relationship with your supervisor, and unfortunately, there aren?t all that many that have that kind of really good close relationship with a supervisor. There should be more of that and that?s usually a management issue, but you have to be able to speak frankly with your supervisor because each and every person is going to deal with grief in a completely different way than every other person. It?s exactly the same only completely different. How?s that?
H: Well, some people immerse themselves in work, right? And that?s how they cope.
T: And that?s not necessarily good either.
G: You?re right, and that comes up later. But one of the things that I have also suggested to people under stress is that the bathroom is always a great place, and if you have to get up and go to the bathroom, excuse yourself, people understand that, and I suggest to people that they go in, get some cold water, splash it on their face, wash their hands, look out the window, take a drink, take a breath. Just a little step like that can be a helpful thing to do. One thing that I think you can educate other people about and, as Tony said, you may have to have a fairly good relationship with them, but on the other hand, you may just say it, and that?s this, if I cry, I want you to know that I will be all right. There?s nothing you need to do for me. Just I?ll do it and then I?ll be fine. I?m not going to fall apart. I?ll be fine.
T: It?s not necessarily just cry. I may have issues that I have to deal with that may not be comfortable to people around me. It may be crying. It may be some other way of acting through that process because you don?t know what that?s going to be until it happens.
H: Like what, like anger? When you say another way?
T: I have no idea what?s going to happen to me if I went through that kind of issue again even though I have gone through it in the past, because it will be a different relationship and I will respond differently. And the things I do, I may not be a comfortable co-worker for awhile. Then if you can understand it, it?s because I am having to learn all over how to live in my skin and how to be me and working with the employees around me is going to be a difficult process added on top of that. It?s a layering situation.
G: But I will be all right.
T: I will be fine.
H: So maybe even telling the people you work with, not just the supervisor.
G: Yes, people need to be reassured that you?re going to be fine.
H: And also that it?s not about them if you are blowing up and have a short fuse. Maybe it?s about your grief.
G: I remember. Our son was killed 22 years ago but 10 years ago, my husband?s partner died. His employees, they didn?t call me. I went over to the office and a couple of them pulled me aside and they said is your husband going to be all right? And I said to them, he is going to be just fine. He?s fine. And they were okay after that. They were scared.
H: He?s as fine as he can be.
G: I said, he?s just going through grieving. If he?s quiet, if he?s a little different, he?ll snap back, don?t worry about it.
T: And that?s where this education process comes in is that grief is messy and grief does not fit into that work environment comfortably. It?s not a good employee relationship when you have grief because it?s a monkey wrench in the whole process.
G: One of the things I was thinking about. You were saying that if you have an advocate, somebody to advocate for you at work. I was thinking if you don?t, you can find somebody. Maybe somebody else that works with you can advocate for you and you can let them know what?s going on. You can develop your own advocate.
H: Well, and if someone?s been through it, I think they would be very understanding.
T: One easy way. One small way that?s very subtle, but in the old days we used to wear a black armband to tell people and it was like a big warning now, this guy?s got a badge, oh, oh, he?s in grief and probably needs support. So Darcie talks about limping a little bit. People have a little more sympathy for you. Well, we don?t wear those any more but we have something we use, a mourning awareness pin, a little lapel pin, and people will ask you about it like they ask you about all of the other awareness pins, this one they don?t know. If they see a pink one now, they don?t ask, they already know. But when they see the black pin, they might ask you what that?s about. Say, ?I am grieving the death of,? and now that?s an entr?e for someone to talk about it. That?s an entr?e for you to share and build a little bit of a bridge there. It?s a subtle way, but it?s a way that tells people there is something going on here. I?m going to be okay, but, I?m not okay right now.
G: But I will be okay. That?s what they want to hear. They?re scared.
H: I like that. A lot of people in New York wore those after 9/11. I like that.
T: Oh, we sent a bunch of them there so.
G: Now where do you get those, Tony?
T: We have them.
G: Well, tell our audience how they get them.
T: If you go to www.griefstore.com, they?re really expensive, they?re two bucks apiece. The whole concept is that they be out there and helpful and a way for people to identify that they?re either supportive of people who are grieving or that they are grieving.
G: And they need support.
T: It?s just a little bit of a tool, just a tiny tool, that the expense is not an issue that way.
G: Well, Tony, it?s time if you can believe it for our final break. Please stay tuned to hear more comments and thoughts from Tony Sims, When Grief Comes to Work. When we come back from break, we want to make sure, Tony, if there?s anything that you haven?t said that you want to say, we want to make sure you say that. You can email us through our website, www.healingthegrievingheart.org. These shows are archived on www.thecompassionatefriends.org as well as www.healingthegrievingheart.org websites. You can also download them on Ipod. Please stay tuned for more.
So we were talking about, I was just thinking when grief goes to work. It always goes to work, doesn?t it? If we?re working, it?s coming along with us. This is our last break. We wanted to ask you if there?s anything you?ve felt like we?ve missed or anything you want to particularly say?
T: One of the big things when I was a public health administrator I had one employee who died and I was at a meeting about 150 miles away. When I got the information about that, I told my staff, I said, we are going back. Nothing here is more important than getting back to the district. We drove back, got in about 10:00 that night, on the way over, of course, we had a couple of hours to plan our attack, and we dealt with it in the appropriate manner that this was important. This was of high enough importance that we should have a down day for people to go to whatever services or pay their respects to this to tell people that this was important enough for us to care. And we also had a meeting with everyone and told them everything we could without violating privacy or any of those issues so the people knew what was going on and nothing was a secret. I do hate secrets because they disrupt the staff and a team more than anything else. By being honest and open with everyone, everyone had the feeling of how important it was that we support that family and we support each other for every one who knew that person who died.
G: So you?re saying to people out there, don?t hide it. Let people know. Pull people aside that you know. If you don?t have a supervisor who you feel like you can pull aside, maybe try to get an advocate. Tell people again that you?re going to be okay, but you?re going to go through a tough time so they know.
T: All of those things, though, will help you support that family.
G: But remember, we?re talking to the family, not the professionals. We?re talking to the family right now on this show.
T: Yeah, we?re talking about the family of the person who died.
G: I know but we?re talking to those families right now, not business people.
T: And we?re also supporting our own team so it?s a win-win situation. Nobody loses here.
G: Exactly. Exactly. And it?s not about that. Don?t you think that a lot of this whole thing is about people being afraid?
H: I was thinking that, too, mom. I think people are afraid of grief and they don?t know what to say and they don?t know how to act and they?re afraid to even approach the subject at work. They?re afraid someone?s going to fall apart.
T: Well, yes, they are, and it?s because again we don?t learn about it until it?s upon us and that?s not really a good time to learn a new skill, but we?re having to educate people as we go along and that?s what we?re trying to do is to educate employers so they can be more supportive of those employees in the workplace.
G: Now if you?re in a business right now, Tony, and they haven?t done anything and you?d like to get involved as an advocate for your business. Maybe you?ve lost a child and you don?t want what happened to you to happen to other people, how would they go about bringing your organization or something into the workplace?
T: Well, the best way is you develop that like you do any other thing that you?re trying to influence in your workplace. You do it through networking. You do it through your contacts, your professional and personal contacts within the organization, and you build a consensus that says we would like to do this, how can we do that, and then we can help you with the research and the pieces that you need to put it together to make it effective.
G: ?We? being Grief Incorporated? Is that what it?s called?
T: We can, yes.
G: And how would they get a hold of you?
T: Well, they can get a hold of us on the internet at www.griefinc.com or they can call us at 888-564-6018, and we?re usually here from about 10:00 until 5:00 or 6:00 Pacific time whether that?s Standard or Daylight, depends on the time of year, and we?re willing to answer questions any time we?re here. That?s what we do. We have an ulterior motive in our company and that is that we?re trying to make resources, information, and products available to people as they were not available to us. So that?s our ulterior motive.
G: How do you think you got through? How did you get through the whole thing? You threw up and we?ve got somebody doing that right now. Do you have any advice for somebody who?s right there right now and not that great a supportive environment?
H: Yeah, you said you felt like you were in the wilderness alone at that point.
T: You don?t want to do it the way I did it. We made every error known to man with regard to inappropriately dealing with our grief and we somehow muddled through and figured out how to make it happen and we did it just by sheer perseverance. Relationship-wise, personal-wise, professionally. Everything we did, we did by just muddling through.
H: So it was trial and error.
T: And we made many more errors than we did correct things. And so what we?re trying to do is to help people not make the same kind of errors that we did before. People will tell you to change everything. People tell you not to change anything. I would say don?t change anything until you?ve got your head on straight and stay in the game. People will want to give you sedatives because they want you to not be disruptive. Don?t take those. Don?t take anything that?s going to delay your feeling and your ability to work through the grief. If you mask it with substances of any kind, you?re not doing yourself any good because you cannot work through grief if you?re not there.
G: Right. Good point.
T: And so you have to deal with it. It?s like paying a bill. If you paid the bill early, you have lots of choices as to how to pay that bill. The later you go, the choices are taken away from you and it becomes somebody else?s choice and all of a sudden that bill will come due and you?ll have to pay it in a way that it has to be paid at that moment.
H: And it can actually get harder because you can actually owe more if you delay the process too long.
T: And that?s what grief is all about.
G: That?s a great analogy. Yeah, let it out there and let people know in appropriate ways. And we?re going to have to close the show today and we know you?re taking your grief to work and we hope that you?ve gotten some ideas from this and certainly Tony has left himself open to having you give him a call or email him and you can also email us. Thank you so much, Tony, for being on the show. We really appreciate it.
T: You?re entirely welcome and thank you for having me.
H: Thanks, Tony.
G: You and your wife and daughter do a great job. Just stay on the show and we?ll talk to you a little bit after. It?s time for our show to close and I want to thank our guest, Tony Sims, and please stay tuned again next week when our topic will be Helping Your Hurting Heart, and our guest will be Lauren Littauer Briggs. As a child, Lauren watched her two younger brothers struggle with degenerative neurological disease. One brother died at age 2, the second at age 19. She?s the author of The Art of Helping ? What to Say and Do When Someone is Hurting. Lauren has great advice for getting through the hard times. This show is archived on our website www.healingthegrievingheart.org as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org website. This is Dr. Gloria Horsley and
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.
G: Please stay tuned again next Thursday at 9:00 Pacific Standard Time, 12:00 Eastern for more of Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and renewal and support. Remember that others have been there before you and made it. You can, too. You need not walk alone. Thanks for listening. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, with
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley, until next week. Thanks, again, Tony.

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