Navigating Loss and Transition

Lessons from Grieving a Spouse and Career Setbacks

By Lawrence J. "Skip" Avery, CCM, CCE, CMAA Fellow
Director of Club Development, Stone Group Architects

Four years ago this October, I lost my beloved wife, Monica. That loss fundamentally changed who I am and how I see the world. Conversations with my P10 Mastermind Group, led by Kevin MacDonald, have helped me explore the complexities of transition, a topic deeply personal to me. Reflecting on this journey, along with significant career setbacks in 2010 and 2012, I've come to understand something essential: life's most challenging moments don't define us. How we choose to move forward does.

We all face moments that challenge our identity and direction. But here's what I want you to know: moving forward doesn't mean leaving the past behind. It's about honoring what we've experienced, learning from it, and allowing those lessons to shape the next chapter. The future isn't something that happens to us; we create it, one intentional step at a time.

Understanding How Loss Reshapes Us

When I first experienced career setbacks, I didn't see the connection to the grief I would later experience losing Monica. But the parallels are striking, and understanding them has been crucial to my healing.

Both personal and professional losses fundamentally shake your sense of identity. Losing Monica meant losing my identity as a husband, my daily partner, my imagined future. Career setbacks challenged my professional identity, my sense of competence, and my vision of where I was headed. In both cases, I found myself asking, "Who am I now?" That uncomfortable question marks the beginning of the journey.

Both trigger profound emotional responses, though society treats them differently. The grief of losing a spouse is deeply personal, touching every corner of life. Society readily acknowledges and supports this. Career loss carries its own grief, feelings of failure, questions about worth, and uncertainty about the future, but often comes with an unspoken expectation to "bounce back" quickly. Yet the emotional impact can be equally devastating.

Here's what matters: both require the same fundamental healing process. Both demand grace. Both need time, not the time others think we should take, but the time we actually need. Both require accepting support, reflecting deeply, and ultimately embracing a new reality we didn't choose. The specifics differ, but the path forward is remarkably similar.

Career Setbacks: Not the End, But a Beginning

Let me be direct: if you're facing career loss or professional setbacks right now, it is not the end of the world. I know it feels that way. I've been there twice. But here's the truth I wish someone had told me more emphatically: career transitions, as painful as they are, often lead to something significantly better.

My own story proves this. The setbacks that felt devastating in 2010 and 2012 ultimately led me to H. Chambers, where I served as Executive Vice President for nine and a half years, and then to Stone Group Architects, where I now serve as Director of Club Development and a minority principal. I joined Stone Group in 2022, the same year I lost Monica, and building something new gave me purpose during the hardest season of my life. I bring over 40 years of club operations experience to architectural projects in ways I never could have in my previous roles. I work with a team that values my experience. The work aligns with my skills and passions in ways my previous positions never did. Would I have chosen this path initially? No. Am I grateful for where those setbacks led me? Absolutely.

I didn't get through it alone. When I lost my job, I had what I came to call a "fired buddy," someone going through the same thing at the same time. We kept each other's heads in the game. We agreed that we both still had a full-time job: finding our next opportunity. We strategized together, ran mock interviews with each other, and kept feeding each other positive thoughts. Our shorthand became "Remember your PT and remember it's all about the A&E." A&E meant Attitude and Effort, the two things no one could take from us, no matter what else we had lost.

Career reinvention isn't just possible; it can also help you find work that truly fulfills you. When one door closes, others open, often in directions you never considered. Your skills, experience, and expertise don't disappear because of a job loss. They remain valuable, ready to be applied in new ways, new industries, or new roles that might fit you even better than what you had before.

The key is staying open to unexpected opportunities and trusting that your professional worth isn't determined by a single setback, or even multiple setbacks. What seems like an ending is often a redirection toward something better aligned with who you're becoming.

If you're in the middle of a job loss right now, find your own fired buddy: a colleague, a friend, or someone in your professional network who is facing the same challenge. Make a pact to hold each other accountable. Treat the search as your full-time job. And every morning, remember your PT and your A&E.

Healing Has No Timeline

One of my most valuable lessons is that healing follows no set schedule, whether you're grieving a person or a career. Permit yourself to move at your own pace. Some days will feel like progress, others like steps backward. Both are valid.

With Monica, there were days, months later and even years later, when grief hit as fresh as day one. With career setbacks, moments of uncertainty crept back in years later. Neither timeline is wrong. Healing isn't linear; it's a winding path with advances and setbacks. That's completely normal.

You don't have to choose between honoring what you've lost and building toward your future. You can and must do both.

What Four Years Has Taught Me

October holds both our beginning and our goodbye. Monica and I had our first date in the first week of October 1984, and I lost her on October 9, 2022. As I approach the fourth anniversary of her passing, I've learned that grief doesn't end; it changes shape. The first year is a series of firsts, and people rally around you. By the fourth year, the world has understandably moved on, and there is a quiet pressure, some of it from others and much of it from ourselves, to be "past it" by now.

Monica was strong-willed yet gentle, with a ready smile or a witty comment for everyone she met. I never wrote her love poems or letters, but I told her I loved her every day. She made me a better brother, a better son, a better father, a better man, and simply a better person. In the days after Monica passed, Dick Kopplin, a close friend and fellow member of my P10 Mastermind Group, came to stay and help me plan her celebration of life. He looked around at her cross-stitches hanging throughout the house and told me he had been in plenty of friends' houses, but ours was a home, comfortable and filled with love. That was Monica.

People sometimes ask whether grief ever goes away. In my experience, it doesn't. It comes in waves, often when I least expect them: a certain scent, a song on the radio, one of her cross-stitches catching my eye as I walk by, or simply a quiet moment sitting alone. What has changed is the weight. The waves don't knock me down the way they once did. And I've come to welcome many of them, because for a moment they bring Monica back and remind me of the good times we shared. Her cross-stitches still hang throughout our home, and when the holidays come, I trade them out for the holiday pieces she made. Hanging them each season is one of those waves I've learned to welcome.

Here is what I know now: anniversaries don't only mark time; they also measure growth. I still carry the loss every day. But I also carry more of what Monica gave me through our 38 years together, and I've learned to let gratitude sit alongside grief rather than waiting for one to replace the other. We always talked about traveling to Ireland together to trace our family roots on both sides. That trip is still at the top of my list, and when I take it, I'll be carrying her with me.

I've also come to appreciate how invisible grief becomes over time. The losses that change everything for us are often the ones no one else can see. That is just as true for the professional quietly rebuilding after a job loss as it is for a widower four years out. Both carry something the people around them may no longer notice.

That is why a simple, sincere question, "How are you really doing?, can mean so much, even years later.

The Critical Role of Support

Whether facing personal or professional loss, connection is essential. After Monica's passing, I leaned on family, friends, and my P10 Mastermind Group. Their presence, sometimes just sitting in silence, made the unbearable more bearable. During career transitions, mentors and colleagues offered different but equally vital support: practical guidance, perspective, and encouragement when I couldn't see the way forward.

Whatever you're facing, the right support network makes all the difference. Reach out. Be vulnerable. Let others walk alongside you. If you're facing career challenges, don't let stigma prevent you from seeking support; your professional identity matters as much as any other part of who you are.

When Leaders Respond to Loss

Most of us live through the hardest seasons of our lives while still showing up to work. That makes every leader, every general manager, department head, and board member part of someone's support network, whether they realize it or not. In the club industry, where our teams and members become an extended family, that responsibility is real.

What I've learned from both sides of loss is that grief requires presence, not solutions. The people who helped me most didn't offer timelines or quick fixes. They showed up, listened, and remembered, including on the dates that still matter. Organizations can do the same: acknowledge loss openly, allow flexibility, check in well beyond the first few weeks, and treat job loss and career transition with the same dignity we extend to personal grief.

None of this requires special training. It requires paying attention, being willing to sit with someone in a hard moment, and remembering that the person in front of you may be carrying more than you can see. That kind of leadership builds trust that lasts far longer than any crisis.

Reflection Opens Doors

Both types of loss compel deep reflection on life shared with a loved one, on lessons from setbacks, on values that truly matter. While painful, these moments offer profound opportunities for transformation.

The questions we ask matter. Not "Why did this happen?" but "Who do I want to become through this?" Not "What did I lose?" but "What remains, and what can I build from here?" These shifts don't diminish pain, but they open doors to possibility.

After losing Monica, I had to ask what kind of life would honor both our love and my future. After career setbacks, I examined what I truly valued in work and what aligned with my strengths. Both required brutal honesty and deep reflection. Both ultimately led to clarity I wouldn't have found otherwise.

Not long before she passed, Monica told me one night that she felt she hadn't done anything of importance on her own. I told her she was the strength of our family. Everything we had, everything our boys accomplished, everything I accomplished, was because of her. Her legacy was our sons and the life we built together. I think about that conversation often, especially when I talk with someone after a career setback. So many of us measure our worth by titles and accomplishments, when what matters most is the people we have lifted along the way.

For career transitions specifically, this reflection phase is crucial. What did you love about your previous work? What didn't serve you? What skills do you have that you haven't fully used? What industries or roles have you been curious about? These questions can illuminate paths you hadn't considered—paths that might lead to more fulfilling work than you had before.

Accepting Change and Rebuilding

Whether loss is personal or professional, the hardest part is accepting that the past cannot be undone. But in that acceptance lies the first step toward rebuilding. Rebuilding doesn't mean forgetting; it means creating something new while honoring what came before.

Moving forward after losing Monica wasn't about "moving on"; it was finding a new way to live with our shared love and memories. My career setbacks, though devastating, eventually led to roles better aligned with my skills and passions. What seemed like endings opened unexpected doors, and looking back, those "failures" were course corrections that steered me toward work that better matched who I am.

If you're facing career challenges, know this: the skills and experience that got you where you were are still valuable. The relationships you built still matter. The knowledge you gained doesn't evaporate. All of it becomes part of your foundation for what comes next. And what comes next can be remarkable if you're willing to stay open to new possibilities.

Cultivating Resilience Through Grace

Resilience is the common thread whether grieving personal or professional loss. But real resilience isn't about being tough or unaffected; it's about showing up for yourself with compassion, especially on hard days. It's taking things one moment, one day at a time.

Moving forward requires patience with yourself, deep reflection, and a willingness to embrace uncertainty. It means giving yourself grace- enormous amounts of grace- and understanding that healing is neither linear nor predictable. I needed grace when grief over Monica hit unexpectedly. I needed grace when career uncertainty made me doubt my abilities. In both cases, being kind to myself made all the difference.

Your Future Is What You Make It

While life evolves in ways we never expected, it does continue. In that continuation lies opportunity for renewal, for discovering strengths you didn't know you had, and for creating a future that honors both your past and potential.

Your future isn't predetermined by your loss, whether personal or professional. It's shaped by the choices you make in response. You decide what comes next. While you'll always carry what you've lost, you'll discover you have the capacity to bring hope, joy, and purpose alongside it.

For those facing career transitions: your professional story isn't over. In fact, some of your best work may still be ahead of you. The chapter you're in right now, difficult as it is, could be the bridge to the most fulfilling work of your career. I've seen it happen. I've lived it. And I've watched colleagues and friends transform career setbacks into career breakthroughs.

If you're navigating transitions, remember: You don't have to do it alone. You don't have to have it figured out. Show yourself the compassion you'd show a dear friend. Seek support for any loss. Allow vulnerability. Trust that even when you can't see it, you're building toward something meaningful.

Loss can shake us to our core, but it doesn't mean our story is over. The past will always be part of us. But the future is ours to create. We honor what we've lost by living fully, embracing each day with intention, and finding meaning in the journey ahead.

Life moves forward, bringing new opportunities and moments of joy we can't yet imagine. Give yourself grace. Take the time you need. Know that strength and purpose emerge from even the most challenging experiences. Your story isn't over; it's just evolving. And the best chapters may still be ahead.

This topic doesn't get enough attention, but it matters. Your grief matters. Your transitions matter. And your future, the one you're creating right now, one choice at a time, matters most of all.

If you ever need someone to talk to, know I am here. Together, we can find hope, resilience, and a path forward.

Lawrence J. “Skip” Avery, CCM, CCE, CMAA Fellow, is a Principal & Director of Club Development at Stone Group Architects, bringing more than forty years of leadership, strategic consulting, and operational experience to every engagement. [email protected]  |  608-335-0342  |  stonegrouparchitects.com