Freak Accident

I began this blog when I quit my last job. I had worked for a company that owned several long-term care homes throughout the province. My office was in one of the homes nearby. It's the largest in the chain. It was really a lot like going to work at somebody else's home....well, mansion really with 160 people living in it. TV's would be going, stereos with music playing, people working on puzzles, having visits, talking on the phone. Most of the time it was a really great place to work.

I know the building inside and out. I was part of the team that oversaw the building project and I visited the site frequently. It is five-storey, square building with one elevator and one stairwell each at the north and south ends of the building. The elevator is really slow; unbearably so when the programming team is shuttling residents from floor-to-floor to attend an party, game or event. Those of us that worked there often took the stairs in favour of waiting for the elevator. We would race up and down the stairs so much that the paint is beginning to wear on the stairs.

I just learned that one of the ladies I worked with fell down those stairs and hit her head. She died yesterday at 2 pm. She was a runner and a Nordic walker. I often thought that I would consider myself fortunate to have her body when I hit her age. She was fit, she looked great and she was a career nurse. She took care of herself. I can hardly believe that she is gone.

A freak accident for sure, made more strange by circumstances. After all, she made a career caring for chronic and terminally ill patients. She would be considered a "kid" by many of them. I'm sure the irony won't be lost on many of the seniors that live in that building.

It reminds me how precious life is.

Too precious to complain about snow in winter.