Your Candle Burned Out Long Before

your legend ever did.

I lost a friend today. I didn’t know her well. I knew her through work. Yet I consider her a friend. I remember her dedication. I remember her silly questions and how we wished she’d just shut up and not ask anything else. I remember her smile and how friendly she was to everyone. I remember how she was willing to share and to help however she could. I remember her talking about her grandbaby that she loved so.

When I got the news this morning it was like getting hit in the stomach. It took my breath away. Just last week a few of us had an inkling something was wrong. But she sometimes had stress attacks and we passed it off as her ‘twisting off’. And there wasn’t much information. It was kind of secretive, which only added fuel to the theory that she’d just had enough and needed a rest. Then the email came today, titled bad news, with the news of a brain tumor, surgery, and not making it.

I didn’t cry this morning. I didn’t cry all day. I wondered, because we weren’t close, if I would cry. But on the drive home, something triggered a memory and the tears came. I cried for her. I cried because of time lost with her family. I cried because she won’t see her grandbaby grow up. I cried because she leaves people behind that love her. I cried because she wasn’t all that old. And I cried because it doesn’t seem fair.

I know she still had a lot to do. And I think about how it could be any of us, at any time. And it makes me sad. I’ve chosen a gray yarn, kind of fuzzy, with some pink and blue in it. The gray is for the sadness. The pink is for angel wings and the blue for the sky, where I know she’s looking down on us.


And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in

And I would have liked to have known you…