The Pressure to Keep Showing Up
A professional space holding both…
.. the work ahead and the grief within.
A widow shows up to work.
She's a leader. A professional. A superintendent. A pastor or team leader. The person everyone leans on. She's the strong one. She's the one who knows what to do.
He died two months ago. Eight months ago. A year ago. Three years ago.
And she still has to show up.
There are colleagues who need her. Clients who need her. A congregation, a team, a department. People depending on her to be steady when everything inside her is shattered.
So she shows up.
She sits in meetings. She makes decisions. She holds space for other people's problems while her own world is falling apart. She comes home and manages the things he used to manage. She answers emails and returns calls and performs competence while something in her is screaming.
She keeps showing up.
And somewhere inside, she feels the pressure. Not the external pressure from her job—though that's real too. The internal pressure. The voice that says: you can't fall apart. People are counting on you. You have to be strong. If you break here, everything breaks.
So she doesn't break. Not where anyone can see.
But grief doesn't care about your schedule. It doesn't wait for a convenient time. It doesn't check whether you have a meeting in fifteen minutes.
I have learned something about this pressure from widows I talk with. They're superintendents and teachers. They're pastors and nonprofit leaders. They're the ones holding families together while their own family structure has collapsed. They're the ones who show up because showing up is who they are.
And they all say the same thing: I don't know how to grieve when I have all this to do.
The truth is, they don't have to choose.
Grief is learning. Grief is a teacher. Grief needs space to work within you and your job, your responsibilities, your life as it actually is right now.
Not instead of. Within.
That looks like sitting in your car for ten minutes before you go into the building. That looks like crying in the bathroom and then going back to the meeting. That looks like keeping tissues in your pocket because you never know when you're going to need them. That looks like excusing yourself from a conversation because your face is breaking and you need a moment. Or staying there and letting your face break.
It looks like saying yes to grief because he was worth the tears. Because the love was real. Because honoring that love means honoring the loss too.
You don't have to choose between showing up and grieving.
You grieve within your showing up.
You make room for the tears because they're evidence of what matters. They're evidence that he was worth it. They're evidence that the life you built together is real, and his absence is real too.
Grief is here because you love him still.
So cry in the car. Cry in the bathroom. Cry in the classroom or the office or wherever you are when it hits. Keep tissues in your pocket. Give yourself the time to feel the loss and the love without apologizing for it.
The pressure to keep showing up is real.
But the permission to grieve within it is realer.
If you're carrying both the pressure to show up and the weight of your grief, I'd like to invite you to a free 45-minute Holding the Ember discovery call. Sometimes just being witnessed in what you're actually experiencing—not what you think you should be experiencing—changes everything. Let's talk.
An Afterthought: My Journey Through Education as a Widow
I know this pressure because I lived it.
For many years, I was a district instructional coach. I walked into classrooms to help teachers find the magic within themselves. I sat with people who were struggling and helped them see what they couldn't see alone. It was beautiful, exhausting work that required everything I had.
And then, in November 2021, Gary took his last breath.
I missed only a few days of work.
For the next 4.5 years, I held both things. The work I had always done and the grief that wouldn't wait for a convenient time.
Some days, I sat in my car before I went into a building. I needed that time. I cried when I needed to. Sometimes in the classroom. Often in the car. Often in the bathroom. I kept tissues in my pocket every single day.
I was fortunate. I found my own life coach in that first year, one who works with only widowed people. With her help, I learned that I can be authentically me, show up for work, and give myself permission to grieve all at the same time.
I eventually became a certified life coach and started Ember & Bloom in 2025 while still working in the district. For one full year, I did both. And then, in June 2026, I chose to take early retirement from the district.
But before I left, I spent that final year falling back in love with education. I wanted to make sure that I showed up to my profession with the same passion and love I had the first year. I was able to do that, and I am forever blessed and proud.
When I turned in my retirement letter to HR, I also included a letter to education itself. I want to share it here, because in many ways, this letter is what this blog is about. It's about what we learn when we have to keep showing up. It's about the room we make for people to be human in. It's about grief as a teacher.
Dear Education,
I came to you at twenty-eight years old. Not fresh out of high school. Not bright-eyed in a dorm room with a five-year plan. I came to you already carrying babies and grocery lists and exhaustion. I came to you after life had already started.
And before any classroom ever opened its door to me, my husband Gary opened one first. He shifted our whole world so I could walk through Purdue Calumet and become who I was meant to become. He made room for my dream before I even fully believed it myself. He pivoted our lives so I could shine.
And shine I did. Though honestly… some days it looked less like shining and more like cutting out lamination at 10 p.m. while eating pop-tarts out of the wrapper.
I officially began at Wallace Elementary, long-term subbing in a first grade classroom while the teacher prepared for twins. She was preparing for twins. I was preparing for everything else. It was the era of reduced class size. Fourteen students. Sometimes twelve. Imagine that now.
And those years were magic. Read alouds upon read alouds upon read alouds. Composition books that held thoughts like little homes. Words that finally belonged to the children speaking them.
We were not just teaching children to read. We were making room for them in language itself.
And somewhere in that first year, I helped write a grant worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to transform Wallace into something new. Which still sounds absolutely ridiculous when I say it out loud. First-year teacher. Tiny classroom. Huge dream.
But Wallace changed. Not perfectly. Not easily. But intentionally.
We built writers, not worksheet fillers. We taught reading and writing as breathing in and breathing out.
And somewhere in those years, I accidentally became a leader. Though I never really thought of myself that way. I was just the person saying, What if we tried this? What if students deserve more? What if we slow down? What if we really see them?
Then came Maywood. Maywood was where I stopped trying to lead and just taught. And of course, that's exactly when Maywood became my favorite building in the district. Some of the best and brightest students of my whole career walked through that door.
Oceana. Willie. Alan. And Stephanie. Sweet Stephanie, who barely spoke at all until slowly, gently, carefully, she trusted us enough to use her voice.
When she moved up to middle school, I followed. Not because of a program. Not because of a score. Because sometimes keeping a child's voice matters more than everything else.
So I went to Eggers too. And middle school will humble anyone. One hundred students a day. Sometimes more. Children carrying anger bigger than their bodies. Children carrying stories no one had ever asked about.
Like Tiara, who called me every name except my own for nearly two years before finally writing on my whiteboard in permanent marker: Tiara loves this class. And oh, I loved her too.
And then there was Lila. Lila, who had never set foot in school before. Lila, who didn't know most of her letters. Lila, who taught me that education is not about making everyone fit the same mold. Lila, who reminded me that schools are not only places of learning. They are places of witnessing. Places where someone finally says, I see you. You matter. You belong here too.
After Eggers, I came back to elementary as an instructional coach at Harding. Those years were rainbows and butterflies. A leadership team that loved each other. Coworkers who became family. Trainings that changed how I understood the work.
And then in 2019, I stepped into the role I would hold the longest—district instructional coach. Which often felt like walking from one classroom fire directly into another, carrying only coffee and optimism.
One building after another. One teacher needing encouragement. One school grieving closure. One exhausted educator wondering if they still had it in them.
And I learned something important. Instruction is never just instruction. People carry entire lives into classrooms. Divorce. Poverty. Fear. Grief. Shame. Loss. Hope. Love.
And if you ignore the human being standing in front of you, none of the strategies matter anyway.
The work was never really about the strategies. The work was about the room you made for someone to be human in.
I had barely settled into the role when the world shut down. In the spring of 2020, during the stay-at-home orders, I started something called the Daily Teacher Challenge. It was meant to be small. Just a way to keep our teachers connected when none of us could be in the same room. It became something I never planned for.
Teachers from Hammond. Teachers from across the country. Teachers from around the world. Showing up for one another, every single day, for four years.
The challenges reminded us to take care of ourselves. The challenges reminded us we were not alone.
And then, in November of 2021—still mostly virtual, still finding our footing—Gary took his last breath.
I missed only a few days. I still do not know how I survived those days. But I know this: I kept showing up because people needed connection. And truthfully, so did I.
Education, you held me while I was falling apart. Not perfectly. Not always gently. But truly. You made room for me too.
And now here I am. Not at the end. Just at the turning.
Because all these years were never only preparing me to teach children. They were preparing me to hold space. For grief. For growth. For brokenness. For becoming. For people learning how to breathe again.
I am leaving these hallways, but I am carrying every single one of you with me.
The first graders at Wallace with sticky fingers and giant stories. The Maywood students whose names I will never stop saying. The Eggers middle schoolers who tested every boundary before finally trusting love. The Harding team that felt like home. The teachers across this district who rebuilt themselves after losing their schools. The administrators trying to lead impossible things. The coworkers who became family. The students whose names still echo in my heart.
And Gary. Always Gary. The man who made room for my light before the world ever saw it.
Now I take everything you gave me, Education, and I carry it forward into the widowed community.
I will keep teaching. Just differently. I will keep making room. I will keep witnessing. I will keep sitting beside people during the hardest moments of their lives.
Because after all these years, that was always the real work anyway. Not programs. Not grants. Not data walls. Not acronyms.
People. It was always people.
With deep gratitude and sincere love,
Gladys Jean Ullstam
District Instructional Coach
School City of Hammond