Jonathan Dupré no longer had a single day off. He had used them all, one by one, in hospitals and waiting rooms alongside Naëlle, his 5-year-old daughter, who had been diagnosed with kidney cancer.
First, she underwent surgery to remove a 13-centimeter tumor. Then, 31 weeks of chemotherapy. And as if that were not enough, a lung infection that made everything a little more complicated. Jonathan, who lives in northern France and works making glass containers for perfumes, did not want to let go of his daughter’s hand for even a single day, but he had no leave left.
His boss knew of a French law that allows employees to donate days off to a coworker with a seriously ill child. He proposed it to the company, and his colleagues responded with something no one expected: they pooled 350 days of their own vacation time to give him. “It was very important that we could be with the girl”, Jonathan said. Sometimes generosity is measured in days.
