I've often heard the reasoning behind going to funerals, "to pay our respects".  I always thought that you went to funerals out of obligation or out of kindness or because you would get to see people you knew but didn't see very often.  Family reunion type thing.

"Funerals are for the living" I understood only incompletely.  I figured it was for the immediate family.  Help them feel better.

But now, there is a funeral in a couple of days (I suspect) where I may not know anybody, but I want to go.  Not because I feel obligated, not because it's a nice thing to do (I don't even know if there is a public event, I don't know if I'm welcome (there's a chance that nobody knows me)).

It's largely because I'm grieving and I don't want to grieve alone.

I work out of my home.  I've been working out the home for the past seven years and 12 of the past 15.  Most of my colleagues and professional friends are in other cities and other states.  My family knows very few of the people I not only work with, but provide me my predominant social support group (outside the family).  Most of the time that's fine.

Today it's not. My wife cannot grieve with me today.  She can support me, but she can't really share the grief about someone she doesn't know.

Jane Alden was one of the smartest people I know and I always told her that.  Over the last several years, we mostly saw each other at conferences. She knew that I respected her a great deal and that she inspired me to in so many ways.  We both shared a passion for solving complex problems, but she did so in such an exquisitely professional way.  I always said "I need to be more like you, do things more like how you do them." 

I am content that Jane knew that I held her in the highest respect and I know that she knows I was very fond of her.

I was not part of her inner emotional circle, and given that our paths crossed infrequently, I didn't push to engage at that level.

What I wonder is did she know that I really treasured those infrequent times we did cross paths?  Did she know how much her professional respect for me made me very proud? Did she know how much her friendship and kindness meant to me on a personal level?  Did she know how much I'll miss her? 

So, today, after I got the email about her passing, I participated in the email threads.  I tried to remember who were emotionally close to her.  And to reach out to them, over many years and many cities, it's a tough evaluation.  It's probably better to err on the side of privacy. 

When another colleague I loved died, Harry Smith, that was somewhat easier, as a tight group of us used to meet with Harry in person regularly.  I knew who was grieving about Harry.

In a distributed diffuse virtual work environment, our relationships are limited and truncated in many ways.  But some of the relationships really do matter. Who do you really grieve with?

In a culture where the emotions are often blocked at the firewall, how do you connect when you NEED to connect?  How do you figure out who really cared about someone? 

How do you invite yourself to a funeral you don't know about?  Time for me to find out.

I miss Jane and I'm really sad.  I want the people who also miss Jane and are grieving to know that she meant and still means a lot to me.  Somehow that helps me.