“It’s the closest you’ll ever get to reading your own obituary notices”

That’s how someone once described all the messages you receive when the news is announced of your departure from a job, particularly if you’ve been there a long time.

That’s how I feel today as former colleagues get in touch with so many kind comments.

Mine is a departure from a company and not a departure from life yet I appreciate the similarities in feelings and emotions – loss, grief, sadness and a sense of finality.

Many people write about ‘missing the chance to say goodbye’.

It’s the notes recalling half-remembered conversations and long-forgotten anecdotes which are the most touching. We often don’t realise or appreciate how others view us or what impact we have on their lives.

It’s an up-and-down sort of day. I reply to every single one of the emails and texts.

I go to bed feeling sentimentally misty-eyed and surreptitiously maudlin.