Current mood:	pensive
Current music:	"Bring it on Home" - Sister Hazel

Ramblings on a strange day...
I just learned that a woman in my office had died today. She’d been sick for a long time, in and out of the office for long periods, undergoing various procedures and the like. She left behind a twenty year-old son and many friends at my firm. The cause of death was sited as “medical complications”. She was forty-six.

I guess the worst part about all that was the way I found out. Earlier this afternoon I had asked one of the folks from accounting why everyone seemed so down today and her response was a strange look and the comment “didn’t you get that memo?” The statement was like something out of the movie Office Space. I nearly laughed out loud when she said that. I’m glad I didn’t, but the statement was so comically office-y. In our world of instant communication, where most people carry a mobile phone with them wherever they go, it was amazing to me that a woman so popular in the little law firm universe we exist in could be reduced to something so simple as a memo. She was a vivacious woman; full of energy, even in the depths of her illness. She was wonderfully cheerful, and clearly masked the pain she must have been suffering from well. Yet the only testament to her death was sitting in my inbox on some random piece of parchment; waiting for my acknowledgement.

That and the whole office was pretty quiet.

Unfortunately I didn’t know this woman well. The little I knew of her was that she was always very kind and cheerful; always the first to bring something in for peoples’ birthday, and often when I’d head out late, she’d give me a jaunty wave and a merry goodbye on my way to the elevator.

She will be missed by many, and I wish I’d known her better.

Goodnight good readers,

-Liz