Angels

I posted a few weeks ago about having lunch with my co-workers and friends, and how after 18 years many of my co-workers have become a second family to me. This morning on arriving to work I heard the sad news that my old boss, my friend, and mentor Brenda Croft had passed away last night. I am heartbroken for her family, her three children, and her husband, she was an amazing generous heart that has touched many people. After the initial shock, the enormity of the loss of my friend really started to sink in for me. Eighteen years ago Brenda was the person that hired me, a friend had said to come in and talk to her, and in true Brenda form, she interviewed and hired me on the spot without even informing our Human Resources Department (at the time she was a trainer). For the next 14 yeas, I worked for and with Brenda in some way, and learned a lot from her as she took me under her wing. She wasn't just a boss, I can tell countless stories about her over the years, at one particularly bad time in my life I had to be away from work for over 6 weeks with only 1 week of personal paid time off for that period. The entire time I was out, I continued to get a full paycheck, I later learned that Brenda had donated her own personal time off to me ot make sure I could make ends meet during that time. She did it anonymously, I wasn't ever suppose to know who had donated that time. The night the Rob and I got married we arrived at our hotel to find that someone had arranged to have a lovely tray with cheese/crackers/sparkling cider/chocolate covered strawberries and flowers delivered to our room; the card read "Love, Brenda". She also helped 2 other friends host a lovely baby shower for me after Jake was born. She never let the professional boundary of being my boss, keep her from letting me know that she loved and cared about me as a person; and I know she was equally generous to countless others in the same way she was with me. We both moved to different divisions of the company a few years ago, and didn't see each other often anymore, but I am deeply saddened by the sudden passing of my dear friend.

Yesterday on my drive into to work I was listening to (and crying over, I cry a lot lately) the beautiful Christmas CD that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir did last year with Sissel, and listening to the beautiful song written by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (those in the know will reconize these names as the male half of ABBA, two of the most under-rated song writters out there in my personal opinion) "Like an Angel Passing Through My Room":

"Long-awaited darkness falls
Casting shadows on the walls
In the twilight hour I am alone
Sitting near the fireplace,
Dying embers warm my face
In this peaceful solitude,
All the outside world subdued,
Everything comes back to me again,
In the gloom
Like an angel passing through my room

Half awake and half in dreams
Seeing long forgotten scenes,
So the present runs into the past
Now and then become entwined,
Playing games within my mind.
Like the embers when they die
Love was long prolonged goodbye
And it all comes back to me tonight
In the gloom
Like an angerl passing through my room

I close my eyes
And my twilight images go by
All too soon
Like an angel passing through my room"

While listening to this yesterday I was thinking of all the angels that pass through my room, and my life; that have gone on before me. I'm so blessed in this life to be touched by many that no doubt qualifying as living angels, and some that have passed on into another rhelm of angels. Yesterday, I was thinking of my Grandparents: Grandma Hill, Grandpa Hill, and Grandpa Dopp (grandparents are the closest thing to literal angels we have on earth, and I have no doubt they watch over me now). As well as my cousing Spencer, and Aunt Betty who both passed on in the last year or so.

I had no idea that another angel would be passing through my room tonight, filling me with so many memories. My heartfelt prayers are with Brenda's family tonight, and they loose a wife and mother right at Christmas time. I hope they have the spirit of comfort with them tonight, I pray that it is, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, and that Heavenly Father has his arms, and Brenda's spirit wrapped around them.

I regret that I hadn't taken the opportunity to stop by and visit Brenda this season, but hopefully she knew what a blessing she had been in my life, how much I cherished her friendship over the years, and that I loved her.

Goodbye my friend.