Read Their Stories
Workplace
Grief can feel isolating, but here, you are not alone. These are real stories—testimonies of love, loss, resilience, and remembrance. Through their words, you may find comfort, understanding, and a connection to your own journey.
Each story is proof of the bonds we carry with us, even after loss. Grief is not just sorrow—it is love that refuses to fade. Take your time, explore these heartfelt journeys, and find strength in shared experiences.
Find Stories That Speak to You:
Grief is deeply personal, but that doesn’t mean you have to carry it alone. Click through to discover voices that echo your emotions, remind you of shared strength, and offer the comfort of knowing others have walked this path too.
Not every story has a resolution, and not every grief finds closure. But through connection, we can hold each other up in the heaviness of loss.
💬 A Note Before You Read
Every story here comes from different places—collected from friends, family, online reflections, and even my own personal experiences. Some are brief moments of grief, others unfold in deep, emotional journeys.
Take what resonates. Leave what doesn’t. And know that, in reading, you are walking alongside others who have felt this too.
🕊️ Which Story Needs to Be Heard?
Coworkers
They weren’t just people you worked with—they were part of your daily life. The inside jokes, the shared struggles, the conversations that made long days easier. Maybe they were your go-to for venting, the person who had your back in meetings, the friend you never expected to find in a job.
And now, they’re gone. Maybe they moved on to a new opportunity. Maybe you did. Maybe life took them away in a way that can’t be undone. Either way, their absence lingers. The desk next to you is empty. The group chats are quieter. The workday feels different—like something important is missing.
Losing a coworker isn’t just about losing a colleague—it’s losing part of the rhythm of your day, a connection that made the job more than just work.
Here, you’ll find stories from others who have felt this kind of loss. No one here will tell you to brush it off, to just “move on.” Because even professional relationships leave a mark, and even workplace goodbyes can carry grief.
Because the people who made our days brighter deserve to be remembered.
🕯️ Need Support in Your Grief?
Losing a coworker—whether through a job change, distance, or loss—can feel like losing part of your support system. If you need a space to process, reflect, or just sit with your emotions, we have resources that may help.
🕊️ Find comfort, guidance, and reflections on grief.
Workplace connections don’t just disappear when the job ends. If you’re looking for ways to honor the impact they had on your life, to carry forward the lessons they left behind, you are not alone in that.
🎁 Explore ways to keep their memory alive
🎁 Holding Onto What Matters
Grief & Solace
🤝 Holding Each Other Up
“When our team lost one of our own, the support from leadership made all the difference in how we found our footing again.”
In Her Own Words:
work isn’t just about deadlines and meetings. it’s the people. the inside jokes, the shared struggles, the moments in between. when we lost one of our own, it didn’t just leave an empty desk—it left a space we didn’t know how to fill.
grief in a workplace is complicated. do you keep pushing forward? do you pause? does anyone know what to say?
but leadership showed up. not with empty words, not with “business as usual,” but with real support. space to grieve, time to process, an acknowledgment that we had lost more than a colleague—we had lost *someone who mattered*.
slowly, we found our footing again. not because the loss was any less, but because we didn’t have to carry it alone.
grief is heavy, but the right people can help make it bearable.
— Michelle K.
Here, you can find deeper support: Explore more on grief in the workplace
Find ways to celebrate what matters most: Discover meaningful ways to honor colleagues
💻 More Than a Coworker
“When Mark died, I didn’t just lose a coworker—I lost a friend who shared countless late-night deadlines and laughs. It changed how I saw my workplace and reminded me to cherish those around me.”
In Her Own Words:
we weren’t just coworkers—we were in the trenches together. late nights, impossible deadlines, inside jokes that no one outside the office would ever understand. mark made the hard days bearable and the good days even better.
when he died, it hit differently. not just because of the loss, but because i never thought about what it would be like to do this job without him. his absence was in every quiet moment, every project we once tackled as a team, every little ritual that used to make work feel like *ours*.
losing him changed how i see this place. i don’t take the small moments for granted anymore. the shared coffee runs, the venting sessions, the laughs in between the stress. because at the end of the day, work is just work—but the people? *they* are what make it worth showing up for.
i just wish i had told him that sooner.
— Rachel T.
Here, you can find deeper support: Explore more on grief in the workplace
Find ways to celebrate what matters most: Discover meaningful ways to honor colleagues
🤝 More Than Just a Workplace
“After our team lost a longtime colleague, the kindness I saw from our leaders changed how I viewed my job. It felt like we weren’t just coworkers—we were a caring community.”
In Her Own Words:
it’s easy to think of work as just a place where you clock in, get things done, and go home. but when we lost someone who had been part of our team for so long, i realized just how much more it really was.
grief in the workplace is complicated. do you keep pushing forward? do you stop? do you talk about it, or does everyone pretend nothing happened?
but our leaders didn’t ignore it. they gave people space to grieve, acknowledged the loss, made sure we knew that what we were feeling was *okay*. and in that, something shifted—work didn’t just feel like work anymore. it felt like *people caring for each other.*
losing a colleague is hard. but knowing you don’t have to go through it alone? that makes all the difference.
— Vanessa L.
Here, you can find deeper support: Explore more on grief in the workplace
Find ways to celebrate what matters most: Discover meaningful ways to honor colleagues