Employee Barely Even Remembers Dead Mom After Taking Company’s One-Week Bereavement

SIOUX CITY, IA—Admitting the five days of somber reflection had been exactly what she needed to move on with her life, Apex Consulting employee Natalie Silver said Wednesday that she could barely even remember her recently deceased mom after taking the company’s one week of bereavement leave. “Gosh, I know her name was something like Linda or Lindsey or something, but after getting almost 120 hours off to process my mom’s passing in the hospice, I honestly can’t say for sure,” Silver told reporters, conceding that she vaguely recalled, in her first couple days away from the office, being ravaged with a grief that had almost paralyzed her as she struggled to comprehend how she could go on living after losing the woman who had raised her with unconditional love, but that this period of crushing sorrow now seemed like nothing but a distant memory thanks to the generous five days of company-allotted mourning. “If I’m being truthful, by the third or fourth day I was pretty much ready to get back to working with the team. I have a fuzzy recollection of the deep, unending guilt I felt for not flying out until her last few days because of work commitments. But it’s definitely not haunting my sleep like it did in the first 48 hours of my leave. After all, it’s not like I lost my direct supervisor. That would have been heartbreaking.” At press time, Silver conceded that during the last few days of her bereavement leave, she was primarily concerned with the tough economic headwinds her company might face in the coming year.