Death of a Co-Worker

The email I got slugged me in the gut. A lady I'd worked beside for almost 20 years had died. Call her Trish. She'd battled cancer. She was in her mid-60s, still young with a lot of life ahead of her. I liked Trish, both as an office mate and a person. I'd left to take a different job, and she went on to retire. I was invited to her dinner. That evening she was so happy and relaxed, laughing, joking, and talking of her family and pets. Trish was a cats and dogs fan. This was all on my mind, as Patton would say, while I reread the sad email. The news sucked. Fiction writers are cautioned not to use the topic of cancer in their work. Cancer is too morbid, and it upsets readers. But then cancer is also a part of life, albeit a grim part. I'll miss Trish, but her family and friends, I'm certain, will feel it a lot more profoundly. She was that sort of a decent person.