Out, Out, Brief Candle

Today I join the ranks of those for whom the brevity of life has become all to clear.  A former colleague,with whom I shared many an interesting conversation while we shared an overnight shift, has passed away.  He was due to join my current team, reporting to me, in fact, a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately he was feeling under the weather at the time, and only made it in for single day of training before getting worse.  He slipped into a 3 day coma and then awoke.  Reports are that his mental faculties were in tact, despite aphasia and right side paralysis.  He seemed to be doing better (conscious is better than comatose,right?).  Apparently not.

I didn't know my colleague all that well.  However, for some reason, the news of his passing hit me rather hard.  Much harder than I would expect.  In considering this, I've come to the conclusion that, while I'm certainly upset at the loss of an intelligent and personable colleague, I'm more disturbed by what his passing demonstrates.  Of course we "know" that life is short and people can be gone in the blink of an eye.  Somehow, though, it hadn't really sunk in.  Even with the passing of my Grandmother nearly 2 years ago, I didn't learn how tenuous our existence is.

I'm the sort of person who has only a small number of acquaintances, and I can count those I consider friends on my fingers with room to spare.  I would have liked to this colleague to be friend, but I never reached out.  So while I mourn his passing, I mourn my not having known him well enough even more.  I hope this lesson drives me to reach out more frequently to those I already consider friends, and to extend a hand of friendship to those colleagues and acquaintances who's company I enjoy.