Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Home, but no new knitting today...

We are home, for a week anyway, then we are going back out to Cleveland for a few more days since we didn't get to see my MIL very much as she had a business trip she couldn't get out of.

While I was out there, I got a voice mail message from the phone chain at work telling me that one of my colleagues/friends had passed away this past Saturday night.

She was only 49. She had a sixteen year old daughter who just so happened to be in Europe at the time on a fantastic once-in-a-lifetime trip that they had been planning for over a year.

Her husband was the love of her life, college sweetheart...They were married for 27 years.

We aren't sure what caused her death. There is some speculation that it was an allergic reaction to medication she was taking for poison ivy, of all things. Apparently she took her last dose of the day, went up to bed, and then never woke up again. Although, they are conducting an autopsy because her brother died of a sudden heart attack when he was young also. The wake is tomorrow night, the funeral on Thursday. Most people from work are going to the wake, I just can't handle it. I'm not much of a wake person, I prefer to remember the departed as I last saw them alive.

For her, that would be the last day of our school year, we had an incredibly boring presentation to sit through (HAZCOM) and she brought word games for us all to play (competitively--because she knew no other way). So we sat there, playing games, intent on beating each other, (but more importantly intent on beating her, because she always won), giggling and trying to look innocent when the principal cast us dirty looks. A typical experience where she was concerned. She was always the one who knew exactly how to lighten up a tense situation, how to brighten up a boring one, and how to give you just the right look or touch on the arm when your day was just total crap. And the day before we all left for Holiday break in December, she would put a spread on in the faculty room a la Martha Stewart that consisted of all sorts of decadent treats that had taken her weeks and weeks and tons of freezer space to prepare for us--running in and out between her classes to make sure the punch bowl was full (cranberry ginger punch--yum!) and there was fresh ice. Making TWO yule logs because one was just never enough, not with her homemade marzipan mushrooms on it.

She was outspoken and boisterous and vivacious and full of life.

And now she is gone.

And her daughter, being a teenager and everything that brings with it, might not realize everything that she was to so many people. And she has to grow up without her mother to share all her days with.

It is surreal to me...and makes me determined to hold my boys just a little bit closer to me, tell the ones I love that I love them a little more often, live my life a little more fully...

Rest gently dear friend...you will be missed...and never forgotten.

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