The View on 48

A dear person, a friend, and a confidante is leaving the office we’re in to work in another office, one state over.

Of all the things to do, she’s getting married and then following her husband to Chicago.

This may be what’s in her best interest, but I’m against it.

Chicago: The City of Big Shoulders. And now the home to my dear Sandra, a woman who genuinely cares about people, who asks questions, and then – in the words of Gomer Pyle: surprise, surprise – listens when you answer.

It’s hard when someone you really like leaves work, isn’t it? Like family, you have no real choices as to who you’re associated with at work; but unlike family, you spend the majority of your waking time with them. Who you work with, who you see during prime time, as it were, can and will change how you see life; and so it is a rare and beautiful thing when the person who sits directly across from you turns out to be a gem, someone you would want to know anyway.

Thus making their leaving that much more difficult. It’s not just the seeing them every day or the work they do, it’s the fact that you look forward to seeing them.

I’m not as demonstrative as I’d like to be. I’m not as affectionate, or kind, or forgiving as I wish I was. Being around Sandra has shown me how to be those things. She has, to use a word in our particular line of business, “modeled” that behavior.

Minneapolis’ loss is Chicago’s gain.

But that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.