Goodbye Irene

Yesterday my friend from work died.

It was sudden, an aneurysm while she was driving home from work. I’m not sure what to do with this information. Not sure quite how to process this.

1) She is dead. Gone.

2) She is with Jesus.

Irene is the first friend who died that I have known for sure where she went when she died. The sadness has an underlying tone of joy. She is with Jesus. Happy, free of the sins and burdens of this life. But still she is gone. Over the last year she and I had gotten quite close. We would talk almost everyday at work, and not for work related things, since our jobs didn’t overlap, only our department. We drove down and spent a few days in New Jersey together for training. It was a personal class, where you tried to see how your personality fits in your work. This really showed me so much about her and myself, and brought us together. At all of the celebratory lunches we would always sit near each other and split appetizers so we could get more options at the same time. It will be so sad when my maternity leave is over and I return to work and she is not there.

She was such a wonderful woman. She was quiet and a hard worker, but would stand her ground fiercely. She cared deeply for people and wasn’t afraid to work on herself. She was pretty inspiring. She didn’t try to get ahead by stepping on anyone else. She lived her life with integrity.

Irene left two grown children behind, and that is where most of my grief lies. How hard it must be for them. She was very close to her children even though they lived 6 hours away. That’s no easy task, she must have talked to them constantly. And now, they don’t have her. Her daughter just got engaged over Christmas, and she must have a wedding without her mother. It’s so sad.

Sadness and joy intermingling in my heart… such a difficult set of emotions.

Goodbye dear friend, you will be missed.