Heavy Heart

HR sends out on average ten to fifteen emails a week.  Some are pre-packaged infomercials from our healthcare providers with the slick advertising bits and pieces easily recognized as the product of years of research by crackerjack marketing 'experts' who think they need to tell you exactly why fatty foods are bad and water and exercise is good.  Hmmm....first day on the planet?  Some are to alert us to the sections of the building closed because of the renovation schedule (the week to paint the outside of the building lasted a month and many emails telling us that winds were bad in Florida but they weren't responsible if our cars were painted in the mustard and orange shades they painted the building).  The weekly FedEx mailing alert and the notification that Juan will wash and detail your car for $25 bucks leave the keys and the directions to your house in the basket at the receptionist's desk (ok...he doesn't need directions since you have your registration in the glove box with the address plainly printed).

Yesterday there was a horrible piece of news I could have done without.  My former co-worker died.  He was only 30.  He was in a motorcycle accident in Tampa whereas the truck didn't stop and he didn't survive.  The email started "As some of you already have heard" from the sobs and shouts around the cube farm none of us had.  Everyone was pretty well stunned by the news. 

Jonathan was not the best worker but he was fun.  His approach to life was to enjoy the hell out of it and plan well for retirement.  He grew up the pet of a bunch of senior citizens who he'd refer to as "the usual suspects" whenever I asked him what he did over the weekend. Answering after looking right then left, "I hung out with the usual suspects".  He took his grandfather to lunch every other month and worried about his sugar and cholesterol.  Not his grandfathers...HIS.  He would screw up and then say, "It just leaves me more room for improvement".  I covered his tush often and with amusement because he really did enjoy life and lived it.  He worried about gaining weight so there were always at least a dozen choices of sugar free candy on his desk.  He would breakdown and buy cookies then foist them off on me and another gal.  He'd disappear for hours when he was supposed to be working then come back and say, "Oh, yeah I gave blood".  I mean how could you not find his approach to life fun?  His funeral is today - I won't be able to go.  But he will be missed.