I built the department they are closing without asking me

Dear Delyara, I started our department from two desks and a spreadsheet fourteen years ago. I recruited almost everyone, wrote procedures, trained managers, stayed through restructures, and missed enough family dinners that my children stopped asking when I would be home. Yesterday, senior leadership announced they are closing the department and moving the work to an external provider. I learned five minutes before my staff did. Then I had to stand in front of twenty-seven people and explain a decision I had not been allowed to influence. Some cried. One asked me why I had not fought harder for them. I had no answer that would not reveal how little power I apparently have over the thing I spent fourteen years building. Executives thanked me afterward for “handling the message professionally.” I wanted to throw the laptop through a window. Tonight, my wife says maybe this is a chance to finally have a life outside work. I know she means well. I am sitting at the kitchen table wondering what it says about me that a company can delete fourteen years of my daily identity with one PowerPoint slide and still expect me to chair tomorrow’s transition meeting.