The Economics of Grief

March 17, 2025

I wrote about this in my column, Business Different, in the Santa Fe New Mexican on March 17, 2025.
Santa Fe New Mexican Column

Column (originally published)

“I don’t know how we can just go to another client now, I can’t stop crying,” Diana Chavez said, pressing her hands under her eyes.

We sat in Biscochito’s living room, the same space where just two weeks ago we had gathered to plan for supporting a beloved client through end of life. On this day, we met to mourn her passing — caregivers, support liaisons and me.

The caregivers would meet privately with our grief therapist later in the afternoon. We were all processing not just the loss of someone beloved but also the strange economics of professional grief.

The caregivers were facing twin challenges: heartbreak and sudden income loss. Many had been with our client for months or years, forming bonds that transformed professional relationships into love — one caregiver had been there at the moment of passing, surrounded by the family who had come to feel like her own.

“When my family members die, I get bereavement leave,” someone noted. “But this isn’t family on paper, even though the pain is as bad.”

Professional caregivers inhabit a unique emotional terrain. They provide intimate, compassionate care — supporting activities of daily living like hygiene and housekeeping, engaging in meaningful conversation, and joining hands during times of fear and pain. They hold professional boundaries while forming genuine connections.

The frustration in the room was palpable. They needed more time to process the loss, but economics pushed against that need. No client meant no income.

Someone suggested, “Could we collect a grief deposit when clients sign up?” The question hung in the air: How would we even calculate that? More hours means more attachment means more grief? That doesn’t really work in practice — sometimes in grief we want to go back to work. Caregivers often work with multiple clients and don’t want to stop supporting their other clients when one person passes.

The room fell quiet. I noticed Maggie Madrid, her eyes pink from days of crying, with an intense look of concentration on her face. I think everyone else noticed her as I did, and we all paused as she said, “We earn PTO. Why couldn’t we earn special grief PTO that we can use only after the death of a client, but that we can choose when and how much of it to use?”

We talked about grief time off (GTO), exploring how it would give caregivers the flexibility and autonomy to honor their own needs after losing a client rather than following a predetermined formula. It would be their time that they earned. Everyone sat up a bit straighter and leaned forward.

I asked the practical question: “How would we fund it?”

We worked through the numbers together. A price increase of 50 cents per hour would allow caregivers to accrue one hour of paid grief leave for every 40 hours worked. After a year of full-time work, a caregiver would have more than a week available.

As we talked, I watched the transformation in the room. The initial wave of helpless grief had evolved into something more purposeful — not less sad, but more directed toward action. These caregivers weren’t just expressing their pain; they were collaboratively engineering a solution that honored both their emotional reality and economic needs.

I’ve said before that the biggest challenge in caregiving is getting and keeping good caregivers, and any organization knows the cost of losing a trusted and valuable co-worker. This is a practical way to build resilience within the organization and caregivers themselves — actual support that they earn and choose when to use.

I am proud to be part of this brave team. By caring for ourselves, and planning for that care, we will be more resilient and more able to inhabit a space of loving kindness. Grief must be included in our financial projections — because grief is also love. Our work isn’t done after someone transitions from this life, and we are creating time to honor love.

What Stayed With Me

What stayed with me was the clarity of the proposal.

No one in that room was asking for relief from the work. They were asking for a way to stay in relationship with it — honestly, without pretending that love leaves clean edges behind.

Grief time off didn’t emerge as a benefit or a gesture. It emerged as a recognition: that labor which involves real connection carries real aftermath. When a client dies, care ends abruptly. Grief does not. Income often does.

What struck me then — and still does — is how naturally the caregivers moved toward structure. Not a formula, not a mandate, but something earned and chosen. Time they could use when they were ready. Time that respected both the work and the worker.

We have not yet implemented grief time off. But once it was named, it changed how we see the work. Some ideas don’t need to be finished to take hold. They begin reshaping the ground as soon as they’re spoken.

Reflection

Some labor asks something of you even after the shift ends.

Not as a story you tell, but as a weight you carry — quietly, while continuing on. This is not failure or fragility. It is part of what it means to give yourself to work that matters.

If you’ve ever felt that tension — between showing up again and needing time to honor what was lost — you already understand this landscape.

When was a moment that you lived with this tension?

You don’t have to resolve it here.
You can simply acknowledge it.

Labor leaves traces.
Love does too.