Yesterday I spent some time with the folks at work visiting the home and family of Steven Shephard, my coworker that past away earlier this week. It was a touching time, and a time that gave me even more perspective.
I found out things about my coworker that I had never knew before. Like he was an avid sports fan. And he loved to play the guitar. I knew he was into boating, but I had never known about his love of sports and guitar. I worked with him for a year and never knew these things about him.
I wonder how many other people we interact with regularly whose lives we never bother to look into. This can be looked at from both positive and negative viewpoints in that there are probably some people with whom we have regular contact that we might have facets of their lives that really should not mix with yours. Then again there are people with whom you have regular interaction whose lives you might not know anything about but that happen to live very interesting lives that would surely enrich your life should the opportunity arise to commingle with that person.
So I am somewhat saddened that I did not take the time to learn more about Steve. I should have. And I will for sure take some time to learn more about my coworkers from now on. I spend the better part of my day with them. I should know who I am working with.
Steve’s family is awesome by the way. I met his wife, his brother-in-law and several other members of his family. They are a great bunch. And I am sure they are going to miss Steve terribly. So will all of us at work.
I found out earlier today that a coworker of mine, Stephen Shepard, passed away earlier this morning. He was 54 years old.
A few weeks ago I posted that I was not feeling well. On that same day Steve was not feeling well and had decided to work from home. A few days later I came back to work, dragassing as usual after not feeling well to find out that Steve was in the hospital.
I am not going to go into any details here because I think that would not be in the interest of Steve’s family. Needless to say, he went into ICU on that day. He was showing signs of improvement, albeit minor signs, and was schedule to be transferred from hospital he was in to another hospital. That transfer took place this morning.
And shortly after that Steve died.
It was a rather shocking piece of news to get today. It was shocking enough to find out that he was in the hospital a few weeks ago, but to find out that he passed away after hearing that he was doing better floored my entire department at work. It is a hard thing to have to go through.
My heart goes out to his wife and kids. They were all able to spend his last days with him which is something that I would certainly be grateful for. I am still just reeling a little bit from the entire experience. I know how hard it is to lose a loved one at such a young age. Makes me want to go home and hug my kids really big.
I do believe there are things that some people are just naturally good at just as there are things that people are naturally bad at. Likewise there are circumstances that some people are prone to while there are other circumstances that people are totally counter to.
It would appear that in my case I am prone to killing vehicles. Little ones, big ones, new ones, old ones. Not sure what the crap this is all about but no sooner did I use my sister’s truck for a time then the check engine light came on telling me that I had once again been stupid and did something to an otherwise healthy vehicle.
To be honest I am not sure what the problem is. But I do know that there will be no driving of this truck for a while. I need to make sure I don’t kill this one into the grave like I did my own car. I cannot afford to have two dead cars on my hands. I am not sure I can handle the guilt.