Finally Friday - The End of a Difficult Week

As I mentioned earlier, a member of my "work family" passed away on Sunday.  I cannot get over how much this has affected me.  I am broken-hearted, not just for the family she leaves behind, but for my own loss.  It sounds selfish.  She was our leader, our mentor, and our friend.  This entire week has seemed so surreal.  I keep hoping that I will wake up and find it was all a very bad dream.  Since we learned the news on Tuesday, employees have been coming up to visit me, just to ask how I am doing, or to share their own grief in our common loss.  I feel I have to be strong to offer them whatever words of comfort I can bring myself to say.  After they leave, I break down and cry in solitude in my cubicle.

Tomorrow are the services.  That will make it real and final, I'm sure.  When someone is in poor health, or of an advanced age, you are not so surprised to hear that they have passed on.  But someone in the prime of life - I think that's what has me so upset.  It doesn't seem fair.

My prayers go out for her husband and her children, 4 young girls.  Now is the time of life when they need her most - the girls are in their early and mid-teens.  No mother to help choose a prom gown, or a wedding gown.  No mother to hold their hands as they give birth to their children.  How sad.