My friend who had cancer has now passed. I shall miss her terribly. She was a hurricane and a half housed in a size 2 frame. She laughed a lot, had this bawdy sort of humor and got a twinkle in her eye whenever someone was telling a joke, especially if it lingered on the blue side. Despite this, she was the picture of loyalty.
For two years now, every time I would see her she would say to me "I am retiring in 2 years." and then it became "A year and a half". She could have retired a few years back, and wanted to. The truth is, that, while she didn't love the company she worked for, she did love the people she worked with, and she did love her customers--and they loved her back. She would complain and talk about how awful things were at work and how much she felt that she was being used by upper management at her company; how there was no work-life balance, how she toiled 12 hours a day 6 days a week or more for people who didn't appreciate it. And yet, as much as she felt put upon, she would take herself into that office, throw herself into her job, and give of herself until it hurt.
I guess if anything about her passing bothers me is not the fact that she is gone--although selfishly, I am sorry to see her go. In ways, she is the better for leaving behind a body wracked with pain and cancer. No, what bothers me is this: I am troubled by the image of the woman who never lived to see that retirement she kept talking about--the one thing that kept her sane in the insane world of work that she didn't enjoy.
It makes me wonder why we do it, and if the return on investment is worth the price we pay...
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