Death Comes Again

Working in an elected office for almost 20 years meant that every four to eight years, there was a significant change in personnel. January 2015 was one such time. With a new big, big guy coming in, there was some turnover in the ol’ Executive Office. One of the new employees was a new office manager.

She was very gruff and difficult to like at first. She also rubbed a lot of the old guard the wrong way because there were new ways of doing things, new procedures, new ideas, and the old way was never good enough.

Eventually, however, some of her rough edges were smoothed and I developed a good working relationship with her. We would vent about other people and about some of the things we were asked to do. We talked about our families and kids and all sorts of things in the five years between her start date and my retirement date. And after retiring, I kept in touch with her via an occasional phone call.

The entire time I knew her, she had cancer. Although she occasionally had breaks from her chemo therapy, she essentially was on chemo that whole time. While she lost her hair and had some other side effects, it never kept her down for long and she kept coming back to work. In a stressful situation where a lot was asked of her.

The last time I spoke to her was around five or six weeks ago. She let on that she was going to retire this month — go out on disability retirement. She wasn’t happy about it, but she was resigned to the inevitability of needing to do so.

What I didn’t know, what she didn’t tell me when we last spoke, was that things had gotten far worse for her. After years of a more or less status quo situation, apparently … well, I learned today that she passed away after a short stint in hospice.

I wish I had known before. I wish for a lot of things. But, it is what it is.

Kim, you were a good person. You were one of those people that no organization, no society, no culture can survive without. You did nothing more than come to work, did your job (maybe bitched about it now and then), and went home to your husband and son and lived your life. Quietly, with dignity and with grace. You will be missed and those who got to know you will feel your loss for a long time.