Saying Goodbye - Day Six

Last Friday, a lady named Becky that I worked with at my new bank, worked her last day at that bank. She was two months shy of being there seven years. She wasn't getting enough out of the bank to stay put, and without enough recognition being bestowed on her --recognition she more than deserved-- she decided to move on. I may not have worked with her a long time, but she is one of those people that you know you'll remember for the rest of your life.

Skip ahead to yesterday, and I found myself needing some information on a loan she had passed on to me to complete after she was gone. As much as I hated to reach out to her, I just had to take care of the customer in the best possible way. After a few text messages back-n-forth, she gave me the information I needed, and I logged into her old account files to pull the information.

As I sat at her desk missing her wisdom and friendship, I thought back to my own times leaving banks. In a job like banking, you create relationships with your clients that run deep and real. Money and the usage of money is very intimate, and causes people to trust you more than most other people in their life. And when it comes to co-workers, you deal with that intimacy and share it silently with each other. You lean on each other and depend on each other like few others can understand. And then, in the pursuit of bettering your own life, you walk away from those relationships with a mere two-week-notice.

This isn't a slam on my recently departed co-worker or even myself, it's just how life sometimes plays out. It's more than a weird feeling to walk away from people and relationships and files when you've poured so much of yourself into them. Doing a mortgage for someone is a months-long endeavor for you and a life-altering decision for the client. That means something, something intense. And then there's the hours upon hours you spend with co-workers, hours that often equal more than the time you spend with your own family... that's a big deal.

I don't know where I'm going with this post. Honestly there's more in my mind about this than I can sort out into anything cohesive. I guess I'll just lay this out there: Cyndy, Linda, Kim, Carolyn, and yes, you too Becky, know that I hold you dearly in my heart. And even though we may never see each other again, I love all of you ladies more than I can ever properly share. Our time together meant the world to me.