It was only a dream...

Over the years, I have made some dear friends at work. I am incredibly blessed to have met them, and I consider myself to be more fortunate in this area than almost anyone else I know.

Over the last few years, my friend Greg and I have gotten very close. He is one of the world's kindest men, and he has a heart of absolute gold. Always ready to support every member of the team in any way he could, he's proven to be not only a wonderful business resource, but also a confidant and trusted ally in every situation.

Greg has been my lunch buddy, and my coffee-run cohort. He teases me when I'm silly, and he listens when I am sad. He has become the person into whose office I run when I need a sanity break, and my very first stop when I acquire a new joke. I have also been there for him as the person to whom he could vent when things got ugly. This wasn't terribly often, for the record. His job, probably the most challenging in my group, was getting tougher and tougher - and his wife, loved more than life itself, was fighting metastatic breast cancer. And yet his strength and courage are a wonder to me - his optimism and serenity are nearly unmatched in this world. I can't imagine how one person can tolerate so much, and still come to the office with a smile on his face almost every day.

In the last two years, he and I turned into the last two men standing, so to speak, from an old circle of friends that has slowly eroded away as people have moved on to new opportunities. According to Greg, it was him and I against 'the evil empire'.

Last Tuesday, Greg resigned. I felt so very alone, and yet couldn't deny that his new job would be perfect for him. He is going to a larger organization which pays better, offers great benefits, and allows him to grow in a way he couldn't any longer at our organization.

Yesterday was to be his last day. On Thursday, he and I went out for our final hurrah lunch, as I had meetings scheduled all day Friday and Monday. I felt horrible about missing his last few days, but he laughed it off. The evil empire, he said, wouldn't allow me to bum around the office for two days on his account.

He told me about how he was leaving Tuesday (today) for Florida to take a much-needed mini-vacation with his buddies. They were going to golf, soak up some sun, and drink a lot of beer. He just hoped his wife got feeling better before he left, because he didn't want to leave before she recovered from her last treatment.

The term metastatic breast cancer, you see, isn't really descriptive enough. First it developed in the breast. After a year of remission, it came back in her cervix. Then her ovaries. Kidneys, hips, spine....and then her liver. Chemotherapy, radiation, vicodin, and surgery became every-day terms. Last month, her oncologist started a new, experimental treatment to try to give her more time. She was slowly recovering from this treatment, and it was an uphill battle.

On Friday, I got a call that Greg hadn't come in. His wife wasn't feeling well, and he was taking her to the hospital to get checked out. He would be in Monday.

Yesterday, I was told that her liver wasn't processing the new medications, and she was back in the hospital again.

Last night, she passed away.

Greg is now between jobs and a new widower. He has two kids, aged twenty and seventeen, who are now motherless. He is supposed to be in Boston this coming Monday for training on his new job. Everything that could possibly be in flux in his life....well, is. All day, I fretted over him. My boss' call this morning with the news indicated Greg was caught totally off-guard by the timing. So was I.

A few minutes ago, my phone rang. It was Greg.

He called to apologize for not letting me know personally this morning what had happened. He wanted to make sure I hadn't taken offense at the fact that it took him 20 hours from the time of her death to reach out to me.

I was horrified to think that he would feel any guilt at all over such a thing. How could this man be worried about MY feelings at such a time? Didn't he know that I only wanted him to take care of his family and let us help in any way we could?

I told him that I'd contacted his good friends J, in Omaha, and K, in Tacoma. I let him know that the phone tree was in place, and we had reached almost all of the staff he's worked with over the years. J in Omaha is driving in Friday night for the funeral, and found a phone number for another friend in Florida. I made several calls, sent a bunch of e-mails, and vowed to make a confirmation call to K in the next few days if I didn't get acknowledgment of receipt of my message (even though I think he would rather pluck his eyes out with a fork than have to talk to me).

My whole group is cooking tomorrow night, and bringing the food to work on Thursday. We'll deliver it to Greg's house that evening, so that he doesn't have to worry about how to feed his kids. We're shutting down the office Friday afternoon, so that we can all go to the wake. I'm so proud that even though it's a group to which he no longer felt an intimate bond, every one of them is willing to do everything possible to help.

But as I sit here on my couch, mulling all of this over, I can not get past Greg's apology for not calling earlier. "Honey," I said to him, "we love you. We are here, and we are all standing at the ready, waiting to help. Go take care of your kids. Don't worry about me, or anyone else. We're not going anywhere."

And even though I'm the worst Catholic in the world, I prayed today. For Greg, for his wife, and for his entire family to find some solace.

And also for more people in this world to love each other as he loved her.

Please, my friends. Go love someone tonight. "Life is too short" is not a cliché.

It is a fact.