I normally blog every Sunday. The weekend gives me some time to reflect on the week and come up with something that makes sense to write about. As some of you know, I enjoy writing about concepts that can help others. To say that I write for myself is a partial truth. I write for myself and others.
I expect that this week, I will write twice and that this particular post will be just in place for last Sunday. You know how life goes… I work and come home or work at home and segment or transition from work life to home life. It is not a smooth transition, more like a switch.
All this week, I have been working on some exciting areas of Knowledge Management and working with new ideas and my passion for the work I am doing has swollen to the point in which I am just freaking happy. In the middle of this my “dad duty” calls and I have to transition to dealing with one kid crying and the other denying any wrong doing. That is pretty normal I suppose. We get dinner done and move to get my youngest into the bath and bed. It is just a regular day. My wife takes the other son to ball practice while I take care of the others and settle the youngest. I come back to my computer to finish up some work and there is a post on Facebook that I am tagged in. I open it to find one of my sisters closest childhood friends has died. Her name is Tanya and she was 38.
I am essentially stunned right now for a few reasons but most of all and the only thing I can think is that WE the world have lost. It doesn’t make much sense to me. It is just my thought. We the world are worse off for Tanya being gone. She was 38. I could seriously write pages and pages about her even though she was my sisters friend and not directly mine.
It occurs to me that I am crying alone and as if my heart hurts alone. It isn’t true and Facebook would tell you that many people are crying but I in fact do feel that I am crying alone. That is why I chose to write today.
In youth we trust our hearts and our youth is disconnected from the world that we can touch and connected through this electronic medium. It may be a bad time for me to put these things together but it seems that it is simple to me. We can’t be connected by these means alone. If we allow ourselves to be always connected by the electronic space between, then we can’t really share the other parts of us that make us human. I want to hug my sister right now and I want to cry with her because she deserves it and Tanya deserves it and others that love her deeply and know her deserve it. Maybe this is the right time to say this because I see this so clearly at the moment. It is a short life that we live. It is shorter than you know because you don’t know when you will die and even if you did because we all do, it will come as a surprise. Even more of a surprise to me, Tanya is the second person that I know that has died this week.
If we are to be human and carry on with our humanity, we have to consider when words are not enough and we must teach our youth .. our children that words alone and 140 characters are only a fraction of the story and of our interaction with each other.
Tanya Regan in Stacey’s words
It is with unimaginable sadness that I have to say good bye to my childhood and life long friend, my soul sister and ray of shining light, Tanya Regan. I cant believe it myself, but its true. Tanya passed away on April 10, 2013. While I dont have many details, I know that her death happened way too soon and I am hoping to find a way to take this all in. I grew up with Tanya and her folks. They were a wonderful family! I loved them all dearly. She was truly the foundation of my childhood. We lived in the same building and would spend endless hours together just having fun! Tanya LOVED life…and if you were lucky enough to know her..then you should know you have truly been blessed in life. If you are able to scroll through some of her photos here on FB you will be able to see just a piece of who she was…She was an amazing and positive adult with many dreams, hopes and goals. She LOVED to ride those rollercoasters..Just innocent plain fun! Tanya accepted people for who they were. It didnt matter the color of your skin or your weight..or how much money you had in your pockets. She was a positive, upbeat person who ALWAYS had a great big smile on her face. This is a terrible loss….a tragedy…and her beautiful life took an unexpected turn. Tanya, you are going to missed…and Ill always love you…and Ill never forget that great bright smile! XOXOXOXO
Most humbly yours,
Stacey
The Cohenization Project 