My friend's passing

My dear friend passed away from Leukemia on Sunday. I got the news last hour.

It's heartbreaking. She enriched my life with her friendship. I am thrilled that I knew her for over twenty years.

Her last e-mail to me was that she loved our friendship. She loved me. She wished that we had travelled more together.

She was the ideal travel companion. We never had a disagreement when we travelled together, be it snorkelling or drinking beer. We knew that we would be travelling companions when we retired.

I have been looking at photos of her. I particularly like the one that I took of her with her daughter at a playground. They are both smiling, with her young daughter hugging her.

I was fortunate to have met up with her for lunch back in December 2019, and January and March 2020. I will remember hugging her for the last time after lunch and waving to her as she drove off.

I am happy that I got to say that I loved her and cherished our friendship. I am at peace telling her what I needed to before she passed on.

May she rest in peace.

Working from home - company-wide till the end of March

On Friday, I received an e-mail saying that employees can work from home till the end of the month. It requires manager approval.

My manager is a control freak. Although I see myself getting approval, the fact that his entire team can potentially work from home this month without his full control over the situation will be difficult for him to digest.

I have been fortunate to have had support from friends and colleagues over his horrible delivery about my being banned from the workplace because I went to the States. It's one thing to be safe. It's also about being compassionate, which he lacks as a person.

Being compassionate is positive

I am fortunate to have three students this term. One of them, before she started her internship, had indicated that she needed surgery in July.

She had her surgery last Wednesday. She stayed in the hospital for a couple of days and has been discharged. She is resting comfortably at home.

I am a sensitive person when it comes to such matters. When my manager injured his eye, I got everyone on the team to chip in for a fruit bouquet. When another writer on my team got injured in a car accident, I ordered a flower and food basket while I was in Montreal training writers over there on behalf of our team.

With my other two students, I made the suggestion to send her a get-well gift. They liked the idea.

As expected, the one student who started in May took the initiative to look up floral gifts and even order it! The other one, who has worked with me the longest, is the youngest, and doesn't exhibit as much initiative, seems to be more comfortable with these two students than the last one that she was with. I am glad, because the other two are slightly older and are mature beyond their years.

We all corresponded back and forth about the floral gift, how to expense it, what to write, and so on. It was a good exercise in being caring human beings.

They will do just fine in this world.

J is for jets and jetlag

My guy and I were fortunate to book the same flights to and from Seattle. We had a brief layover in both directions.

There is a three-hour time difference between Toronto and Seattle. My guy generally has a tougher time adjusting, but he seems perfectly fine adjusting when there is a small time shift. However, when he is halfway across the world, it takes him a week to get back to his normal self.

I managed to book my seat next to my guy for three out of the four flight segments. I couldn't sit next to him from Seattle to Chicago. Instead, I was in row 25 and he was in row 29.

My guy is a true gentleman. Whenever we fly, he manages to help me with my luggage and such. When we had landed in Chicago. I looked over at him, and he waved and smiled at me.

When we had landed in Toronto, we were waiting for our luggage off the carousel. There was an older woman who needed help getting her luggage off the carousel. My guy not only offered to do that, but he also went to fetch a cart and put all her luggage on it.

To my guy, there's nothing unusual about such a gesture. To me, it just shows how kind and sweet he is to everyone. It's nice to see. I am fortunate that he is my guy.