i hate late night phone calls

I hate late night phone calls. I mean, in and of themselves, they're not a bad thing. I guess I have just had too many bad experiences with phone calls at random times--times when you shouldn't be getting any.

I was talking to a friend the other day about how I have been conditioned to think that certain calls at certain times from certain people automatically equate something negative. It's not a normal response to think that a family member calling me in the middle of the day is a bad thing. And yet, every time it happens, my heart stops and I say a prayer that everything is OK. Perhaps that speaks more to the type of communication that I have with my family than anything....but maybe it is also indicative of my irrationality in some areas.

Tonight, however, it wasn't an irrational thought and the knots in my stomach were completely justified in the end. My supervisor called me. It was after 10:00pm. He asked me to call him back. His voice was sober. I braced myself for the worst, but you are never prepared. It was just as I had expected. A co-worked had gotten into a serious car accident and was killed. He wasn't just injured, his life was taken.

Even now, a little more than 2 hours later, I am still having a difficult time believing that the phone call was real. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that I won't ever have another interaction with him. It makes me sick to think of his poor family--his wife, his children, his mother, his siblings. It makes me sick to think of how this tragedy will forever change their lives.

Those words "there's been a tragedy" are painfully familiar. My family has experienced death far more often than is fair. Normally experience and the familiarity it brings, makes things easier. But death never gets easier. My reactions are always the same...the gravity of the loss is always intense.

I'm glad that my last interaction with him was a positive one. I think that I even praised him and profusely thanked him for something that he had done for me. I am grateful to know that there is life after death, that this is not the end. He was a good man and his influence will be felt, I'm sure, for years and years to come.

Clark, you will be missed...