Belated Retirement Gift

I didn’t have a good excuse, like being sick for a month with the flu. I just was absent minded, not thinking about you, as you gave your two weeks notice and trained the new guy up. True, you’re one floor up from me, but that’s no excuse, I just didn’t see. Then one day there was no, “Good morning,” from your boisterous voice, and the two weeks warning was sand through the hourglass. No forwarding email or phone, not to me, your pandemic colleague, not personally. It was only too late I bought you a card, congratulating myself for trying hard, and asked HR to send it forward- I apologize if that was untoward. I even enclosed a modest check.

That you were there in the times when I cried, like my health and my friends and the world had died- those terrible months when the only filter to break free from distress was the large office printer- that meant a lot, and was such a to-do, though the worst of times lasted only a month or two.

My dear pandemic colleague, over 60 years old, enjoy your retirement- you deserve it, I’m told. And although I am younger, you see I’m more senile; forgive me, for knowing you surely was worthwhile.