A person who works on our organization died this past week from cancer. She was the founder of the NC Triangle Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which last year was recognized as the top Komen affiliate in the world. She had survived breast cancer for 21 years, but was diagnosed with lymphoma last year. A week after the 12th annual Race for the Cure last June, doctors discovered the cancer had invaded her brain.
In the first year that she brought the race here, about 2,500 people participated, raising roughly $100,000. Last year, nearly 24,000 people participated, raising more than $2 million.
There was an article in the News & Observer about her, but the impetus for including this here has to do with her obituary. I work with someone who signed Jeanne’s online obituary with these sentiments, which I think are incredibly sweet and touching:
| Jeanne was truly an inspiration to so many. During the 25+ years that I’ve known Jeanne, she was more than a co-worker and employee—she was a true friend and will be missed dearly. We worked on the same hallway for many, many years and would always be the last to leave. If she left first, she would stop by my office and say “It’s time for you to go home” and vice versa. Jeanne was and is always encouraging, uplifting, displaying a positive attitude, and smiling. My prayers are with her loved ones. She will forever be in our hearts. “Jeanne, it’s time for you to go home.”
Mardecia Bell (Garner, NC) |
Mardecia is an incredibly nice person, as you can probably surmise yourself.
In some e-mail exchanges between members of our recently formed salon, one of the members referenced this great story from NPR’s This I Believe series on January 12, 2009:
| Inviting the World to Dinner Every week for the past 30 years, I’ve hosted a Sunday dinner in my home in Paris. People, including total strangers, call or e-mail to book a spot. I hold the salon in my atelier, which used to be a sculpture studio. The first 50 or 60 people who call may come, and twice that many when the weather is nice and we can overflow into the garden… [What a great way to facilitate diversity. Click on the heading to read the rest of the quite remarkable story. Once there, you can alternately click on the “Listen Now” button to have the story read to you.] |
We had our monthly staff meeting at the level of my boss’s boss, which includes about 20-25 people. I was the facilitator of the meeting, which was lightly attended for various and sundry reasons.
I had lunch with my officemate and team member, Rhonda, and my manager, Jude. We ate at Neomonde and Jude treated. It was my first time there, and I loved it. I had some eggplant lasagna, some cabbage salad, tzatziki, and two pita breads, upon which I smeared the tzatziki. Yum!
It was a working lunch—as we had a team meeting after finishing eating. I really enjoyed the social time during lunch, during which, among other things, we talked about obituaries.
At about 2:00 or 2:30, back at the office, I shifted into hype-productive mode, and stayed at work until 9:00 finishing up on an edit of a website that someone asked me to take a look at a couple of weeks ago. It’s one of those things in what Covey calls the “important but not urgent quadrant,” which are the ones that typically get brushed aside for the things in the ever-popular and demanding “urgent but not important quadrant” items.
I had intended to check out Trailer Park Prize Night tonight, but once my late dinner was wrapped up and it was already 10:30, I decided just to stay in and relax. And that’s what I did.