From: Don
Subject: The Funeral
Friday,
This morning a dignified, proud gentleman approached me and thanked me for coming to the funeral of his son. Earlier this week, Juan came to work at our Refinery with every intention of doing his job for us and returning home to his young wife. In July, they would be celebrating their first wedding anniversary and looking forward to the birth of their first child, due later this summer. But something happened, Juan fell inside the tower he was working on and had to be transported to the hospital. He was pronounced dead early Tuesday morning.
Joel, Rich and I attended the funeral services this morning. This was a difficult experience for me both as a leader of our site and, especially, on a personal level. It is hard to describe for you the range of emotions that I have experienced this week and the impact this will have on me for the rest of my life. We work in a very large site with literally thousands of colleagues. It is possible to lose track of how many people each of these individuals may impact. Juan’s hometown is South, Texas, a small border city of about 15,000 people. The funeral procession for Juan was of such a size that it literally shut down the town as it passed, with people all along the route stopping to pay their respects.
The Catholic Church was filled with hundreds of people who cared about this young man. Many friends from school were present and virtually all of the city workers turned out. Juan had once said he would want his funeral to include his favorite music. Therefore, his music was played loudly outside the funeral home, church and at the grave site. There were many pictures from his wedding and he even had one of his favorite cowboy hats with him. The entire service was in Spanish but I had no trouble feeling the emotion and the grief that was expressed.
Although I was only able to speak briefly with Juan’s father, I could not help but think about how I would feel in his situation. My oldest son is 19, not that much younger than 26 year-old Juan. I know that there is no greater loss than to lose your child, no matter what their age.
We talk about Safety all the time. We have Safety moments before every meeting. There are signs and procedures, etc. However, that just isn’t enough because a young man died this week. He was a hard working individual trying to make a living to support his new bride and expected child. He had a family who loved him and hundreds of friends. Like Juan, every one of us has family and friends that depend on us to be safe every day.
What I ask is that you take a moment to look around you at all the fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, and friends working near you, and just think of how great the loss of any one of them would be. Nothing that we will ever do here is more important than the health and well-being of each of us.
Don
(While the names in this note have been changed in respect of the family – the message clearly remains the same….)