Very difficult day

I suspect the next few days will be extremely difficult for my friends and me. As much pain our hearts all feel, our hearts ache most for the children. Last night, my boss had the most difficult task of informing her 19 teachers that our beloved coworker had passed away. It was sudden, shocking and I will never forget the audible gasp and tears from the 21 people in that room last night.

Friday and Saturday, our friend was fine and on Sunday she was rushed to the hospital with a horrible headache. All that we knew on Monday was that our friend had called out to work. I'm sure some thought, "what an inconvenience" and others probably thought nothing of it at all. My boss received a phone call early Monday morning informing her that our dear friend was in the hospital and the outcome wasn't great. Our boss made the difficult decision to hold this in and called an emergency meeting for that night to let us know what was happening.

We didn't know why we were needed, but what I knew was that in the four years I have been at that day care center ... I have NEVER once had my boss call an emergency meeting for the same day. Same week .. sure .., but never the same day. She knew that we would all need each other with the news that she was sharing about our dear friend being in the hospital.

We would all need each other last night more than ever as a mere 5 hours after letting us all know that our presence would be required our dear friend passed away. There are so many questions to be answered ... What happened? Was she in Pain? Where are her children? Why did this happen? and How do we tell the children that we care for every day that a woman that was "just fine" on Friday was no longer here?

There is no manual for all of this. There is no time line for grief. How can we be "normal" for the children and parents when WE are aching so much ourselves? My friend's children ... her beautiful children. How I ache to be able to take this pain away from them and give them their mother back. An 18 year old girl who gave birth to my friend's first grandbaby, her 13 year old daughter and a pre-teen boy have to live the remainder of their lives without the woman who gave them theirs.

Death is a difficult subject. We have to take care of ourselves, our friends and most importantly the children that loved her so much. This brings me back to the subject I have thought about so many times before. When you expect death, you grieve during the illness and there is a bit of a relief when your friend/family is promoted to Heaven. You grieve, but it's a bit different. A sudden death, You grieve so much harder. You cry so much harder.

Please pray for all of us affected by our friend's death, but most importantly pray that her children will have understanding that God loves them and God doesn't make mistakes and she is living forever in Heaven.