For the past month, we’ve been at work without our manager who has been on extended sick leave due to her battle with breast cancer.  We all knew that she wasn’t feeling well but not exactly how badly.  She had treatments last year too and came back just as strong and we were expecting the same this time around.  Then on Monday morning, we were called in for an emergency meeting at lunch and were told that she had passed away on Sunday night.  It was such a shock to all of us since she was the type of person who didn’t want to worry us with details and kept a lot from us on purpose.  So the rest of the afternoon was spent grieving and coming to terms that our fearless leader wasn’t going to be returning to us after all.  We were all in tears and most of us took the rest of the day “off” with a minimal workload and time to process.  This is a photo of Sue having some “Janie Time” back in June when she was only 10 weeks old.  Sue was a great person, awesome therapist, and I learned so much from her.  *sigh* I’m going to miss her.

This evening, a bunch of us met up at our other manager’s house after work for a little “family time”.  She’s been out due to hip surgery too so it’s as if all the birdies at work haven’t had their mamas around for almost a month.  I took off work a little early in order to hurry home to pick up Kumquat and then headed back over the bridge to Alameda.  I had thought about not bringing Kumquat but I’m so glad that I did.  I think we all needed some “baby time” to lift our spirits.  It was like she was a “therapy baby” for all the girls and made everyone smile.  Steph brought her buffalo chicken dip and we ordered Indian food for dinner.  We all sat around the table talking and laughing as we usually while reflecting on all the funny times we had with Sue.  I think we’ll all heal in our own ways but this was a nice start.  We just need to remember that we really are a family at work and that we’ll get each other through it in the end.  I feel so lucky to be able to spend most of my waking days with such great people.  Kumquat had a pretty good time tonight too. 🙂