I was honored to be able to attend a goodbye for a coworker this evening.  She was someone who had a ton of responsibility and oversaw a vital unit at the university.  She invested her heart, a ton of time, sacrificed being with her family, exercising and sometimes eating lunch.  She got pretty torn up this past year and everyone has known it has been hard.  So what were her words as she left?

“My time here will have been successful if you guys are successful.  If you guys don’t succeed in the future than I haven’t been successful.”

Confession:  when I left my last job, I wanted it to fail.  Although I battled with that thought every day and hopefully triumphed over that turning into words and slander, but that’s what I really wanted.  I wanted it to fail so that everyone knew how much work I put into making it successful--I wanted it to fail so that they would regret losing me.  I wanted to fail to make myself seem better--to feed my pride.

So hearing these remarks from my colleague today rocked my mind and convicted me.  She knows that her job has been laying a foundation for our division--she recruited, hired, trained, inspired the staff that still remain.  And her work will only continue to show in the future.

I know that there are still kids at Vintage who remember me and families who miss me.  I had to walk into the gym the other day to grab something and saw the walls that I painted.  I saw a man and his son at Trader Joes yesterday who I got to dedicate when he was first born.  My success can be seen by the success of the volunteers I invested in.

I think I just wish--and i’m sure my colleague would be with me in this--that people were recognized and that we are able to see success as we go along.  But sometimes that’s just not the way it works.