A Door Closed, But Really I Have Already Stepped Through

We're still in this pandemic, everyone. Let's not kid ourselves. Last week my travel agency closed it's doors permanently. Oof. It was poorly orchestrated and it was not headed by the best people for the task. If anything it was a clear indication of how much my dear agency was the black sheep of the corporate family. We really got a sense of who genuinely cared about us and who were "just doing (their) job." They tasked my colleague with a long laundry list of things that had to get squared away...all because she was the only one who had been recalled to the office to do work. The rest of us were only asked to gather our belongings and leave. But after 10 years together I could not leave my team stranded and fend for themselves. I left my new job a few hours early one day and hustled hard with my colleagues trying to empty the office of as many brochures and as much garbage as we could. My regional manager, who is still furloughed, actually texted us the night we got our notice...she took the time, even though it was not her role at the moment, and made sure we were all comforted and handling things ok. Our colleague from a sister agency came and helped my team for several days still purging the office as much as they could. And on the 7th that was all she wrote; a switch was flipped and all our ties to the travel office were severed. Our website, gone. Our admin access to our Facebook page was severed (though all they ever cared about - narrow-sighted as they were - was Facebook so thankfully I still had access to our Instagram, Twitter, and Google pages to post a proper goodbye and closure announcement. All my emails with suppliers and clients just vanished...like the Thanos of the travel industry had snapped his fingers and we no longer existed. It is still so so so SO surreal I changed roles when I did. Who knew my new position would be so vital to so many Canadians during this pandemic? Who knew the travel industry would be wrenched into a fetal position for more than half a year now? I look to my former teammates; although we are all mourning our little office one of them is essentially retirable now so she is in a good spot financially and career-wise. She has the freedom to sit back for a while and plan her next course of action. My other colleague still has a fairly young family that counts on her once in a while to provide...the government has some benefits she can use in the meantime but will it last long enough to see her back in the working world? In other pandemic news my family and I are now allowed 2 half-hour visits a week with grandma in the courtyard. Masks on, socially distant, all that jazz. We tried our first weeknight visit this week but it's swiftly looking like Fall weather is coming soon so I don't know how many of those we will get to do with her and have her comfortably warm outdoors. Our Saturday afternoon visits work best. She still asks about dad and I know it hurts my mom to have to answer all the time. I really did not expect we would have to keep up this ruse for as long as we have but in my eyes we really have no choice. If we can't be there to comfort grandma as much as possible when we break the news then we should not be telling her at all yet.