Strong emotional content alert. I’ve written about loss and dealing with grief on other occasions and probably even the intense aspect of loss with no warning. This, then, may be a post to skip. Irony will “out” at times because with so much attention on COVID-19, the fact that “Death waits for no man” in the normal range still applies. One week ago yesterday, I picked up a friend at 5:00 a.m. to take her to one of the strings of “prep” appointments one has prior to a scheduled out-patient surgical procedure. She was in great spirits and her son was to pick her up later. I sent a text the next afternoon to check on her. She was fine; had slept on and off most of the day, but was ready for the CT scan scheduled for Friday. If she was finished in time and not too tired, she would join our small group for Happy Hour. When she didn’t show for that, we assumed she was either running late or tired. I meant to text/email on Saturday, but the day got away from me. Her not reaching out first was a little unusual; not enough to raise concern. At 10:30 Saturday night the call came from the other friend who’d been at Happy Hour. When she received the news and called me, no one knew quite what had happened, but our friend had passed away. The shock set all of us back and it took a while to get the correct version. For reasons as yet unknown, she suffered a seizure followed by a heart attack during some part of what was a routine procedure and they were unable to resuscitate her.

Our friend had been to dinner Thursday evening, her usual smiling, pleasant self. As everyone has attempted to come to grips with this, the comment of, “I didn’t know she was ill,” is understandable except she wasn’t, not precisely. The condition she had (can’t recall the exact term) is one that many deal with; that medical technology is such, you go in, have an out-patient procedure, rest up a bit and make sure you do your follow-up with the doc later. Then there are those tragic turns no one anticipates and no one is prepared for. Her service is today and due to the COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings, what would be a full church will instead be a relatively small group at the funeral home although the service will be “live-streamed”.  Watching a loved one/close friend suffer through a lengthy illness is incredibly difficult. Coming to grips with sudden death, especially when it is, “too soon”, carries with it a different level of loss. (She would have been 73 in September)