Unexpected loss

[kathleen_dailey]

I received an e-mail yesterday notifying me that a former colleague had died after a short illness. I was shocked by this news--not only because I hadn't known that she was ill, but because I'd have said that she was one of the least likely of my co-workers to die prematurely. She was athletic and fit (tennis, yoga, biking), younger than many of my friends, and full of life and enthusiasm generally. I could have pictured her as a grandmother, a post-retirement traveller, a participant in a second career. I have many vivid memories of her over the last 25 years, and I met her for lunch just a few months ago. At that time she seemed and looked happy and healthy and full of energy and ideas, as usual, about her work projects. She wasn't an extremely close friend, but nonetheless it's going to take a long time for me to come to terms with her death.