Donnamay

Last Sunday, my friend and co-worker died. Donnamay had been ill since before I met her 12 years ago. It wasn't cancer and it wasn't HIV, but it might as well have been some kind of combination of both, since the treatments sounded like some kind of mild chemotherapy that suppressed her immune system and made her susceptible to anything that could infect her. If she were alive, we'd all be worried for her about this swine flu.

There was nobody like Donnamay to talk to when you were having a hard time with something. She had seen a lot of life. When she said, "I know it's hard, honey," she knew. And somehow that just made it a little easier to bear. She was taking care of family and friends right up to the end. She made our department into a family and was a wealth of information and knowledge that's going to be very hard to replace.

It's been a beautiful and temperate spring so far. Beautiful, temperate, and deadly.

Harrumph.