Suddenly, Life can Change

Suddenly, Life can Change

by East Bay J

I got home a while ago from a service at a funeral home. A co-worker died suddenly last week.

When I got to work Thursday morning, my boss came to me and asked me if I knew Cindy. I said yes, I've known her for years.

My boss told me that Cindy died the night before, she had cardiac arrest. She apparently had surgery and had some post-op complications. And now she's dead.

I was stunned, and spent the day thinking of her and the last time I saw her. It had been about a month ago. I was taking a patient in a wheelchair over to the hospital, to the Emergency Dept. As we got close, I saw Cindy and in the hallway.

It turned out that the patient I was taking to the ED was Cindy's aunt. So we gabbed for a few minutes. She told me that she had just been down to Phoenix and had seen a mutual friend, a former co-worker who had moved.

I met Cindy about 9 years ago, when we worked together at another clinic. We both transferred to the new clinic when it opened a few years ago, and recently she had moved to a different department in the next building.

She was 49, a wife and mother of a 16 year old son. She used to come to work years ago and tell us that her son liked to dress up in girls clothes, put on make-up, playing with dolls, and she wondered if it was just a phase.

I went into the funeral home today and saw lots of familiar faces. I slowly went up front. I looked at the casket, I could see her face, and my stomach started to churn. I went to the side of the room and looked at pictures that were placed on poster boards. One jumped out at me, it was from a cruise she had taken in April, less than 2 months ago.

I went to the casket and looked. I barely recognized her, the make-up was so thick and I would never have known it was her. One thing I noticed, and I'm not sure why, was that she had a French manicure.

I looked over to the side, where her family was seated. I saw her son and her husband. I started to wonder how her son would do. He is gay. Her husband is not accepting. How will he manage without his mother? Cindy was very supportive of him, she even helped him dress up and put on nail polish.

My friend Dan called me this morning, he and Cindy were close, and Dan is worried about her son.

Life is so unfair at times.