Saying Goodbye

I went to the memorial service for a 49 year old colleague this afternoon. The first of what I'm sure will be many during my career - not that it's ever going to get easier. Having known her for about a year, our time together was much shorter than many others there. But, I'll miss her just the same. A year ago, when we met, she picked my teammate and I up from the Metro to head off to a meeting we were a few minutes late for. I'm not convinced the car came to a complete stop before we were driving off while introducing ourselves. After that meeting we kept in touch since we were working on similar projects (but in different departments). We kept each other in the loop as far as what we'd found to work and not work and in the current BuCorps political climate. When I spent 8 weeks in training near her office we met up for lunch and caught up. A month ago she visited my office and spent her lunch break (two days in a row) talking with me about my (new) job and keeping me updated with what she was working on. Each time we saw each other she was more excited than the last often exclaiming "Can you believe they pay us to do this? How cool is that!". That phrase embodies her spirit and her work ethic. It was nothing for her to crank out work e-mails at 10:30 on a Friday night. Today I learned that in addition to a very full work life she volunteered with the Civil Air Patrol, was a volunteer fire fighter, and a potter. I'm sad I won't be able to continue to work with her but I hope to use this experience to double my efforts to keep up on the human side of employment and to live each day as though it is my last.