Making it up

A few weeks ago I was having a chat with a member of our QA dept. I hadn’t seen her for ages - she had been working from home in between very regular dialysis sessions, avoiding infection as the date for her kidney transplant approached. She was approaching the operation with the same stalwart attitude she approached all her physical problems - having had a heart and lung transplant over 10 years ago she knew what it was all about.

The kidney was being donated by her sister, who works in the development dept - I used to sit next to her. A pretty unusual family - they banded together last year to raise money for a heart lung transplant charity - when J turned out not to be up to the three peaks walk they had planned, S did it anyway, and between them they raised over £5000.

So we were having this chat and talking about her forthcoming operation, and my several weeks off sick. She told me to look after myself and was truly sorry to hear about the miscarriage. But again, that was her through and through, a very caring person.

In my manager’s office this morning, we weren’t expecting the phonecall that said we won’t be seeing her again. The transplant operation due to take place friday just gone had been cancelled - they’d found some test results they did in June that said she wouldn’t make it through the operation. They were right - she went to sleep last night, and didn’t wake up. So it was a very odd day in the office - the developers and QA who’d been there a while and knew her and knew what we’d lost kept sniffling into tissues, and the newer support staff respected our fragility and left us to it.

I hope wherever she is now, the sun is shining and there’s no more pain.