Like many of you, I found the recent required culture training on “Covering” to be fascinating and useful. It was also surprisingly emotional. Kenji’s closing anecdote really wiped me out, and I almost found myself on Does the Dog Die? contributing some trigger warnings.

But I’ll be the first to tell you that having a word for something is truly necessary before you can talk about it, and both the concept and the word, “covering,” has given me a tool to look at my own behavior, and examine places where I have covered or passed in the past, or am doing so now.

One reason covering resonates so well with me is that, at its heart, covering is about authenticity. I very much to be authentic and to be surrounded with authentic people. Everything in my experience has taught me that exposing yourself to different people, different perspectives, will inevitably lead to “good things.”

In “How to tylerbu” I quote Edgar Schein:

We admire the loyalty to each other and the heroism that is displayed on behalf of someone with whom one has a relationship, but when we see such deep relationships in a business organization, we consider it unusual.

If I believe that my relationships within the team are important, what can I do to deepen and strengthen them? “How to tylerbu” is a start, because it can jumpstart conversations when meeting new people, but it’s not enough on its own.

I think one way to start is by being more transparent about my life. I was so fortunate to have ten colleagues join me on a trip to my home in Papua New Guinea in 2019. For much of my career, I didn’t talk about Papua New Guinea. I covered. I have never been ashamed of growing up in PNG, or being the son of missionaries, or, really, anything about myself. I’m actually proud of it! It’s kinda the only thing that makes me cool (ha!). So why cover it?

Because it’s complicated. Because it brings an unending stream of questions. Because sometimes it feels like I’m a zoo exhibit, which was often how it felt growing up too. Because often it’s far easier to use my straight white male privilege when it is unencumbered by my PNG culture. And because I didn’t care enough about my work relationships to be fully transparent about who I am.

What a bunch of crap. I wasted too many years believing it.

The opportunity for a PNG trip garnered a lot more interest than I anticipated, and I am forever grateful to those who joined me and my family. That trip was one-of-a-kind, and so were the experiences we had together. Those colleagues – now friends, every one – hold a very special place in my heart, and that trip is no small part of that. That only happened because I opened up. And my colleagues met me right there – they were interested, they encouraged me, they reaffirmed for me that indeed, PNG does make me cool.

So, do we need to take a team trip to Papua New Guinea? Well, yes, of course, but that’s not my point. My point is that the trip itself only happened because I stopped covering. And the trip was awesome. So there are compounding effects here – not only was the trip enabled, but the number of relationships I built or deepened even with people that didn’t go on the trip has been surprising.

And it turns out that those relationships really matter, because that trip was the last time I saw my sister.

My sister Bethaney died unexpectedly in October. She was 36 and my only sibling. She absolutely loved Papua New Guinea, and she, like me, loved taking people to visit Likan, the village where we grew up.

Her help in planning and executing the 2019 trip was critical to its success, and she proved yet again she’s ten times the PM I could ever hope to be, and a thousand times the human. Oh, how I miss her. I have only made it through the last few months without her thanks to a lot of grace, understanding, and help from a lot of people, including many of you. I have never felt lonely or alone throughout this time, and that’s a truly incredible thing to be able to say in light of COVID and all the isolation we’ve experienced this past year.

Despite everything, it’s hard not to be grateful. Grateful that I not only have a job in this mad world, but a career with a team that welcomed and continues to welcome a weird white kid from the jungles of Papua New Guinea and has stepped up without question to take care of things when I couldn’t or still can’t. Bethaney would have felt right at home on this team, and that’s no small feat.

Any married person will tell you that a marriage is tested not when things are going well, but when things are going poorly. Work relationships are no different. Early in my career, when I had fewer concerns and responsibilities both at work and in life, it was easy to think of work relationships as secondary or even unnecessary. But things eventually took a downward turn in my personal life, and I was fortunate to have already joined the WAC team by that time. The friendships built there got me through that valley, just as they are helping me through this crisis.

So if I get a bit misty-eyed the next time we see each other, or if I grab a drink when the conversation turns to your weekend camping trip with your sister, or if I’m not talking about PNG as much as you’re used to, you’ll understand why. And you’ll understand that I’m hurting, and I’m not at my best, but I’m improving. And you’ll give me a little grace.

Because you’re my team.

Trigger warning: sad video

My sister Bethaney died on October 13, 2020, in Madang, Papua New Guinea. She had just turned 36 in August. The cause was a severe case of cerebral malaria. It was sudden and unexpected. We knew she had fallen sick, but my family has weathered countless illnesses over the years in PNG so we have a good sense of severity. This one snuck up on us. My parents called me at 5:40pm PST and they were performing CPR in the haus sik (hospital) by 8:40. It was mid-afternoon Tuesday in PNG time.

My parents are in the US, in Tennessee, where my dad is from. Because of travel restrictions, none of us will be able to go to PNG. If it was any other year, Autumn and I would already be on our way to PNG, as would my parents. Everyone that knew Bethaney has unanimously agreed that she would want to be buried in Likan, the Waran village where she and I grew up. So I don’t think COVID made any difference in us getting her body back to the US – she was at home in PNG, and we would be going there, not bringing her back here.

On news of her death, members of our Waran family immediately made plans to get to Madang to ensure she had family with her – knowing we could not. There has been a haus krai (literally “house (of) cry(ing)”; customs vary a bit but this this blog post is a pretty good description) set up for her in Madang, the town where she lived as an adult. It’s been moved to a bigger location once already.

Malaria is an illness the PNG people know and understand well. Everyone in PNG has lost someone to malaria or its complications. It may sound odd, but I find it fitting that Bethaney died from an illness that takes so many Papua New Guineans – because she always saw herself as more Papua New Guinean than anything else.

On Monday PNG time, the body will be flown to Likan, the village where we grew up, and where several of you visited last summer. There, the funeral preparations will begin. There will be another haus krai, and the mourning will commence. This is the part that I am most heartbroken to not be present for. In PNG, mourning is intense, it is full body, it is loud, and it is characterized by wailing. It is not something that can be described. It is pure anguish, laid bare for all to see, and there is no shame in the pain. It is collective, like so many customs in PNG.

When I returned in 2018 after being gone for 18 years, dozens of village women hugged me with such ferocity one would think I was their only child. All of those women and more will wail for hours at the loss of my sister, and it crushes me that I cannot be there to wail with them. These are the times when I miss Papua New Guinea the most. Their way is to go through the pain, forcefully, and in doing so cauterize it. After the wailing, which will last at least a full day, there will be little crying. There will be loss, yes, and sadness, but the heart-wrenching, debilitating grief will be dealt with. There is no other way to survive so much death. As my dad said yesterday, “Life goes on with or without us.” I fear that I will not get the cauterization I would from the PNG custom, and that the pain will haunt me long after it should. But Bethaney herself dealt with the worst sort of death and heartbreak and found the strength to continue, and she and I are cut from the same cloth. I’ll be OK. We’ll all be OK.

While Autumn, my parents, and I cannot be there personally, there is a contingent of local ex-pats that will go in our stead. Jesse Pryor, who grew up with me and Bethaney and, like her, returned to PNG to live and work, will be there to represent our family. We had to have permission from the Provincial Administrator to bury Bethaney in Likan since she is an ex-pat, and Jesse worked to secure that permission. In the letter of approval, the Provincial Administrator wrote. “Likan is the village she called home, and where she was raised in her childhood. She is a ’trupela meri Sepik,’ who was fluent in the local languages, customs, and lifestyle of the home where she grew up. I see no reason why her family’s wishes to be laid to rest in the village of Likan not be honored.”

When Jesse forwarded the letter on to us, my dad thanked him for securing it. Jesse said, “My pleasure. I’d charge hell with a bucket of water for Bethaney, and she’d do the same for me.” I love that quote – it sums up the fierce loyalty and friendship she engendered with everyone she knew. Would that we could all have such relationships in our lives.

Today marks my 14th anniversary at Microsoft. I don’t have donuts; sorry. But many of you may have missed my 12-year anecdotes from 2017. I’d better start prepping for the big 15 next year! I can’t phone it in then! 😊

Some of you may not have seen some of the videos and pictures from my unexpected return to Papua New Guinea in August of last year. I hadn’t been to my village, Likan, since 2000 so it was a bit of a celebration. We also visited a neighboring village, Klorowom, and received an excited welcome there. Expect more of these types of videos later this year, since a whole group of current and former WAC folks are going in June! (By the way, if you want to join us you have until April 1 to commit –- let me know.)

Videos:

• Likan greeting
• Klorowom greeting
• Some of my favorite pics from the trip