She Will Be Missed

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life.

    -- J.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Bk 4 Ch 1

    I lost an excellent team member last week. She and I may not have a deep friendship, but as her manager, we did have a very good, cordial, and strong relationship. She and I have taken time to speak with each other. I've listened to her talk about her hopes and her plans, both professionally and personally. She was a very good person and it is a shame to have lost her so soon.

    Death touches us, whether we knew the person well or not. The fact that you were, at the very least, acquainted with each other will affect you. What more if you worked closely together for a year?

    I hope I was a good manager to her. I hope she enjoyed her time in our company, within our team. I hope she had the chance to fulfill most of her dreams. I hope she had the opportunity to have a grand adventure. I wish we had a chance to say good bye. And I wish, no matter how briefly, she was able to find her own Mr. Darcy.

    I'm glad that she is now at peace and no longer suffering. And while that previous line may sound trite and cliché, I find no other words to find comfort in.

    I still stop and think of her in the middle of the mundane tasks that occupy my everyday responsibilities. I remember her smile and her laughter. I remember the way she spoke of her learners. Best of all, I remember her courage even in the midst of her disease. I admired her for it. I respected her all the more. She was not one who gave up easily. She was not one who caved in to staggering and overwhelming depression. She did what she felt she had to do and what she wanted to do. She lived.

    The world lost someone beautiful that day. But we will always remember. We will always be thankful for the brief time she was in our lives.

Shimmy, Shiny, Sunny

I want to shimmer, I want to shine
I want to radiate
I want to live, I want to love
I want to try to learn not to hate

                                                -- Shimmer,Shawn Mullins

    It's been awhile since I last uploaded anything in my blog. Call it writer's block or having a dry spell. Either way, you'd be right. This is me making the effort to get out of this funk. So, to all those who sent me emails, MSN messages, and SMS messages asking, encouraging, threatening me just to get me to start writing again... Funk you very much. This one's for you.

    A couple of months ago, I idly watched as my birthday slowly crept by, passing me like some sort of shadow on a nice Indian summer kind of day. I wanted to do something special like maybe throw a really fun party with this great theme and lots of heavenly food. Aside from the fact that I was too lazy to get off my arse and start planning, I was also being a bit of a scrooge. [Hey, go back and read one or two blog entries past and you'll know why I'm a bit of penny pincher nowadays. This is a direct consequence of my memorable shopping binge.] Suffice to say, nothing happened on my birthday except that it did pass. Unlike me, my birthdays tend to go gently into that good night.

    A month a ago, I sat terrified as I watched my mom struggle to overcome a sudden onset of diabetes. Given the fact that diabetes is generally an hereditary disease and the fact that we don't have a history of it in our family, this was a great surprise for us. According to the doctor, a candida bacteria attacked her blood or something like that, which caused her blood sugar to suddenly surge to 400. Don't ask me what it was exactly because I hardly registered a thing. All I knew was that my mom was ill and I saw the terror in her eyes as she fought to control the violent chills her body was unable to prevent.

    As the eldest in our rowdy brood, I felt most responsible for settling all necessary details related to our sojourn in the hospital, from finances to logistics. I must say, hospital bills are nothing compared to the maintenance medication.

    A week after my mom's hospital confinement, it was my dad's turn to undergo laser eye surgery. His second. It makes me wonder how he actually managed to get his retina to disengage and separate from whatever eye part it is attached to.

    Holy Week passed by silently and unobtrusively as my birthday did. Both times I was working. The only difference is that I managed to get into a rather interesting email exchange that ruffled my feathers, raised my shackles, and got my dander up. I must have looked like a strange mutated animal then. Ah well... I know I made my point and I did it with great aplomb and a whole lot of civility. As much as I can muster anyway.

    I've been meaning to make use of this hardbound journal given to me as a gift by one of my dearest fiends (who is now probably enjoying her stint as a shepherd in the land of Aragorn and the Hobbits) for Christmas. I haven't gotten around to it yet. Mainly because I haven't felt like picking up a pen from the bookstore just yet.

    I have two editors from two different magazines running after me while I run after their deadlines. So far, I've managed to finish the race, albeit not exactly setting speed records. Interesting relay, don't you think?

    Now I just feel like I'm in dire need of a nice long break. I hear the surf breaks up north are great at this time of year. Hmmm... those couple of long weekends coming up sure are making me smile a little bit wider now.

    The first quarter of the year is over. I still have several months to make sure that this year shimmers, shines, and radiates with love and life for me. It's time to get off my lazy fat arse and start dancing the fandango to a fantabulous and abso-bloody-lutely fantasmagorical mid-thirties.