The Label for ‘Sad’

I have a funeral to go to tomorrow.

A coworker of mine was diagnosed with cancer of the kidney about three months ago. Initially it looked like it would require surgery and chemo, but the prognosis was good. Sadly, a few weeks later the doctors discovered cancer in his liver, then lungs and eventually the brain. They gave him a year, but after several strokes and seizures he went downhill far faster than anyone expected. He died last Sunday, about a month after his one-year diagnosis.

Earl was not always the nicest guy; I think he sometimes just forgot what tact was. Regardless of his faults, I knew and worked with for more than six year and he will be missed. I swear I keep expecting him to walk out of the coffee shop or drop me a note about the content management system. It’s hard to grasp that he was here and all of a sudden he’s not.

There’s that whisper of mortality in my ear…