I was sitting in my neighborhood tavern the other night sipping beer while glancing between the Avalanche game on TV and the email I was checking on my phone. As I was deleting old messages, I found a blast from the past—an email sent to me a few years ago by a mentor and friend named Johanne Hakey.
I met Johanne in 2009 while working at my first full-time accounting job. I was just a flaky, immature staff accountant with bigger dreams than I had brains. She was a short, silver-haired manager with a smile as large as life and an ability to make every day great. I was struggling to find my way in a new career, my moments of brilliance eclipsed by confusion and dumb mistakes. She was a sparkler at midnight, a tiny flame exploding into a shower of light and igniting others around her. I was nothing special and certainly not a rising star, but she took an interest in me for reasons I’ll never understand.
I worked with her on a few tax clients and she was patient as I slowly caught on. But her greatest gift to me wasn’t work or career advice, it was showing me how to live. When I told her one of my greatest dreams was to attend the winter Olympics, she convinced me to go to the upcoming games in Vancouver. I had to ask for the impossible: an entire week off in the middle of the 2010 spring tax season. This is a non-starter at most accounting firms. I was scared to even try and incredulous that our tax department director would even consider it. Johanne coached me and implored me to try. If I never ask, she said, the answer would always be “no.” I was overcome with shock when my boss approved the time off. From that situation, I learned a great deal about attempting those things we initially dismiss as impossible.
Soon after my Vancouver trip, Johanne gave me a book called Live a Thousand Years by Giovanni Livera. It’s a fictional narrative adventure about filling each year of your life with so many meaningful experiences that you feel like you’ve lived a dozen lifetimes. Because of that book I created a bucket list and started tackling it by deciding to climb Kilimanjaro.
I took a job at another firm in late 2010, and not long after she moved to Florida. We stayed in touch for many years, exchanging emails every so often. I wanted to visit her in Florida but I let life get in the way, and in the blur of time after the COVID pandemic, I lost contact with her.
The email I rediscovered that night in the bar was typical Johanne—brimming with joy and spirit, encouraging me on what was at that time my new journey as a writer.
I was curious what she’s been up to or if I could find the firm she was working at in Florida, so I Googled her name. The top website hit was an obituary dated February 8, 2024.
I sunk in my seat, blindsided. This was not fair. It was like the north star suddenly disappeared from the sky and I had taken for granted its steady twinkle. The void was dark and bitter. I had to close out my bar tab and head home.
I suspect Johanne never quite understood the profound impact she had on me. I think she just wanted to spread joy and embolden others to live a rich life.
She was an authentic human who in turn treated me like a genuine person. As a junior employee to her, I was not just an instrument of productivity or a tool to further the firm’s interests—or her own. When I’ve had the chance to lead and mentor others, I’ve tried to follow Johanne’s example. I wanted to help my team members do the best they could at work, but it was far more important that I help them do the best they could at life. Despite my best efforts, I will never be able to quite measure up to Johanne’s standards. In my defense, I think few of us could. Still, the world would benefit if more of us just tried.
Johanne was 70 years old when she passed away. Knowing her, she packed more life into seventy than most of us would in seven hundred. Her passing reminds me that life should not be measured by its length but by how thoroughly it is lived. Though the sparkler’s laughter of light has dissolved into only memory, the glow remains in the lives Johanne touched.
She was brilliant.
Steve Grimes 