Life goes on

This past thanksgiving was also my birthday. It has been a tradition that my family comes over and celebrate it with us. It coincides with all of our birthdays too, so there was neverending eating. It's the one time of the year we indulge in eating. This year I just bought cajun fried turkey from dickey's and boy was it spicy! My kids loved my homecooked one better. I invited my friends but they already had plans, they suggested though to come over on Friday instead. And so we had a leftover party that Friday. Saturday was rest day for me, and movie at night. Sunday was church, then lunch out at Boiling Crab. We feasted on scrumptuous seafoods - shrimps, crabs and crawfish. Then we went to the Shops at Legacy for an after meal stroll. I thought we refused dessert, but when we passed by the Cafe Express, the smell of coffee got our attention. People are out in the patio with heater sipping coffee and hot choco. So we found ourselves seated and ordered some beignets, eclairs, porferioles with coffee and hot choco. It was a good thanksgiving weekend or so I thought. At church on that Sunday, my director called. I missed his call, so I called back, there was also no message. I still was not able to speak to my director. He called again Monday, when I was off. He told me the bad news, my manager just died of a stroke on thanksgiving day, my birthday. I was shocked and couldn't believe it. How could that happen? He was just his usual self on Wednesday. He even waited for us to put in our time sheet before the holidays. He was a good manager, and he's one reason, I couldn't transfer departments, because I was secure with him, that he'll take care of me. Now he's gone and he's not coming back. He is a big loss for us. What hurts is that we couldn't even pay our final respect, since his remains will be flown to his hometown in New Jersey. I'm trying to get back to normal, but I think it will take time. He's been my manager for 5 yrs. 3 deaths since last year. Still haven't fully recovered from the 2 relatives of mine. But as some would say, life goes on, death is inevitable. It's real. It's hard to accept and explain, but it happens. What we can do is just live fully loving and appreciating all our gifts and trust the rest to God.