A workaholic father vowed to change his ways after he learned the tragic news of his eight-year-old son's death while he was in the middle of a conference call.
J.R. Storment shared the emotional story online as he begged other parents to put their family lives before their jobs. He explained that his son, Wiley, passed away in his sleep in 2019 after suffering a rare complication of mild childhood epilepsy. The boy's mum, Doctor Jessica Brandes, found her son cold in his bed as his twin brother, Oliver, played on an iPad nearby and his dad was already out of the house at work.
J.R. - who founded US-based cost management system Cloudability in 2011 - spoke about his tragic loss in a post on LinkedIn, where he said his son's death had served as a startling reminder that so many people's work-life balance is not what it should be.
In his post, he also said he wishes he could turn back the clock, as he wrote: "Eight years ago, during the same month, I had twin boys and co-founded Cloudability. About three months ago Cloudability was acquired. About three weeks ago we lost one of our boys."
The dad explained he had left his home in Oregon, US, at 5am on the morning Wiley died, and had already held a work call in his car on the way to the office. He was in such a rush to get to work that he hadn't said goodbye to his family or even checked in on his children.
And when he received the call telling him his son had died, he was on a conference call with 12 people. He recalled: "Minutes earlier, I had admitted to the group that in the last eight years, I'd not taken more than a contiguous week off.
"My wife and I have an agreement that when one of us calls, the other answers. So when the phone rang I stood up and walked to the conference room door immediately. I was still walking through the door when I answered with 'Hey, what's up?'. Her reply was icy and immediate: 'J.R., Wiley is dead.'
"'What?' I responded incredulously. 'Wiley has died' she reiterated. "What?! No.' I yelled out, 'No!', [she said] 'I'm so sorry, I have to call 911.' That was the entire conversation. The next thing I know I'm sprinting out the front door of the office with my car keys in hand, running ferociously across the street and muttering 'Oh f ***. Oh f ***. Oh f***."
When J.R. got home, his cul-de-sac was rammed with emergency vehicles and half a dozen officers stopped him from entering his home. "It was 2.5 painful hours before I could see my boy," his post continued. "After an hour of waiting in shock out front, I told the armed police officers guarding the doors that I couldn't wait any longer. They allowed me to go out to the deck facing the kids' room to peer through the sliding glass window. He lay in his bed, covers neatly on, looking peacefully asleep. I put my hand on the glass and lost it.
"I laid down next to him in the bed that he loved, held his hand and kept repeating, 'What happened, buddy? What happened?' We stayed next to him for maybe 30 minutes and stroked his hair before they returned with a gurney to take him away. I walked him out, holding his hand and his forehead through the body bag as he was wheeled down our driveway. Then all the cars drove away. The last one to leave was the black minivan with Wiley in it."
J.R. says his son had dreams of owning a business and had fallen in love by the age of six. But it's his own work-life balance which caused him the biggest regret. He said: "Many have asked what they can do to help. Hug your kids. Don't work too late. A lot of the things you are likely spending your time on you'll regret once you no longer have the time. I'm guessing you have meetings on the books with a lot of people you work with.
"Do you have them regularly scheduled with your kids? If there's any lesson to take away from this, it's to remind others (and myself) not to miss out on the things that matter. The big question is how to return to work in a way that won't leave me again with the regrets I have now. To be honest, I've considered not going back.
"If you are a parent and have any capacity to spend more time with your kids, do. When it ends, there are just photos and leftover things and time is no longer available to you. It is priceless and should not be squandered. Take your vacation days and sabbaticals and go be with them. You will not regret the emails you forgot to send."
His wife Jessica wrote in her own LinkedIn post: "If we've learned anything at all, it's that life is fragile and time really can be so cruelly short. We wish a lot of things were different, but mostly we wish we'd had more time. It is priceless and should not be squandered. Take your vacation days and sabbaticals and go be with them. You will not regret the emails you forgot to send. From now on, if you email or text me and my reply takes longer than expected, know that I am with the people I love sharing my time, and creating my new identity and I encourage you to do the same."
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