Over the weekend, a work colleague of mine passed away, inexplicably. She wasn’t much older than I was. I saw her on Monday from afar, as I no longer sit right next to her like I used to before my promotion. Apparently, she left early, citing that she wasn’t feeling well; and nothing more was thought of it, because the seasonal flu was very much on our floor, and numerous people had already succumbed to it, and were either already called in sick, or were leaving early.
Little did I realize that it would be the last time I would ever see her. It’s frightening to think of life being as fragile as that. As we were primarily co-workers, there’s only so much that I really knew of her, but I never knew if she would have any health issues to where the flu or byproducts of the flu could actually become lethal.
But aside from being “just” co-workers, this was a person that I probably would have considered my closest confidant at work. I don’t fraternize with my peers a tremendous amount, and especially now that I’m in management, I didn’t necessarily always feel that it was that appropriate, so it somewhat of a big deal that she and I were as candid and frank with each other in our own hushed conversations throughout the work days.
When I was still an artist, she was my coordinator, and we had a working relationship that was just about the epitome of a well-oiled machine. We came into our departments at relatively the same time, and each went through our series of lumps learning said departments, and the first year of working together was bumpy at first, but solely in work process, and not personally. She was an extremely hard and diligent worker who chose to be in our department, whereas I was assigned to it; she wanted the challenge of dealing with a complex department, while I just liked having a job.