When joy and pain arrive at the same time
At least we had a little laugh.
My freshman college roommate was on the phone wanting help.
Anything big, anything joyous, we have shared since that day many decades ago when we were randomly assigned to the same dorm room.
And that was this week’s conundrum: how do you manage joy and pain when they are simultaneously swirling around your life?
“They’re telling me it’s time,” Friend shared the moment I picked up the phone. Time for her beloved 93-year-old father to enter hospice.
He’s been in and out of the hospital in recent months with labored breathing.
This wasn’t just any dad. He’s been a true giant of a man. Not a CEO or a billionaire, but a kind decent man who led his family and his community since Friend’s mom died soon after we graduated college.
Even after the blessing of all this time together, the family still wasn’t ready to let him go.
And then there was this: Friend’s oldest daughter is due to be married next month. A wedding shower was scheduled for this weekend. Her youngest daughter’s birthday was the next day. “I don’t want her birthday to forever be tainted with the passing of her grandfather’s passing,” she said.
I listened and understood, understood that there’s never a good day to let go of someone you love.
I also understood, Friend would not get to control the actual day her dad would pass.
Here is where we had the laugh. I reminded Friend of the trip more than 20 years ago when we all met up in New York City at Christmastime. That youngest daughter was a toddler and it was time to start potty training her. With her first two, Friend had had a very strict
Daryn
Suddenly home with time on her hands, Mann started to look at Zillow for houses in Dayton.
“Eventually the pull of home brought me back,” Mann said. “I was always watching all the work being done in Dayton and the force of nature it is. I wanted to come back.”
Mann was pregnant with her second son, Finn, when the family moved back to Dayton. They bought the former Isaac Pollick House, built in 1876, on Monument Avenue downtown. Stephenson was hired to work as the head of sound at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and Mann’s job with Raines International as the senior vice president, advisory, became fully remote.
Their new home, however, needed work before the family could move in. But Mann fell in love with the “bones” and unique features of the home.
“Our home was the Dayton Peace Museum prior to our buying it,” Mann said. “It wasn’t ready for us to live in and didn’t have a kitchen or full bathrooms.”
The renovation took about two years and during that time, the growing family lived with Mann’s parents in Washington Twp. In July 2023, Mann and her family moved into their newly renovated home.
“We live downtown, and we can drive to all the Dayton suburbs when we need to,” Mann said. “The houses here are really incredible and have amazing stories.”
Mann admits there has been a big shift in the world of work since the pandemic. Her hundreds of business trips annually, traveling all over the world to deliver workshops, have diminished greatly and she has learned to translate it all to a virtual space.
“Hybrid roles seem to be the way things are going,” Mann said. “People want to be around other people but they also appreciate the joy of flexibility so they can go to their kids’ games or a family birthday party.”
Mann said a recent Gallop survey shows that employee engagement has gone down for the third year in a row since 2020, so companies are once again focusing on how to keep their teams motivated and engaged.
Another big reason Mann decided to return to Dayton was to work with local businesses and companies, offering her skill set to help them build their workforces and cultures.
“My goal from day one has been to give back to this community and be more a part of the place my family has called home for 200 years,” Mann said. “I’m in the business of both the head and the heart. That means learning how to treat people well but also keeping an eye on the business’ bottom line.”