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The first jolt came out of nowhere. Just a phone call at work with the ominous preamble, "There isn't any good way to tell you this...." Shit I hate those words. I couldn't have imagined the rest of the news, that the young woman who helped my children go down the aisle in order during my second wedding, the beautiful wife of such a dear sweet man, in fact the man who presided over that wedding, had passed away 8 hours after going to the hospital with what she thought was the flu. It wasn't flu. It was the Hantavirus. Since first identified in 1993, only 146 people have died from it in the U.S. And Sara was one of them. She was 44. I can't even imagine the pain her husband and young sons must feel. All I can do is listen to the hush as it fills my throat.

One week later, I realized that my friend, Kaye, hadn't responded to my emails informing her of Sara's death. That seemed odd. More than odd; wrong. Something was wrong. Kaye hadn't been well. She'd struggled with cancer for quite some time, and the last I'd heard from her, she was hopeful. I emailed her, telling her that I was worried. About 30 minutes after sending her that message, Pitbull arrived at school, and took me aside to tell me that she'd just learned that Kaye, too, had passed. She was not yet 50.

Two days later, which puts us at this past Friday, I was greeting a parent and new district representative to our program. I usually am the administrator who gives tours for districts and parents of prospective students, especially if they are autistic or would otherwise enroll in the Life-Skills program. We exchanged a few pleasantries and when I learned the parent's home town, I said that I assumed she'd been involved with two of my early and most important mentors, as they have a clinic in that town. Indeed she had, and then she went on about how sad it was when Sally had died of a heart attack. Unlike the news of the other two friends, this one had the additional impact of slapping me in front of people with whom I had to maintain composure. I extracted the mother's fist from my gut, inhaled deeply and did that stupid waving of the hands in front of the eyes thing and tried to swallow hard enough for my stomach to go back to where it belonged. I felt so dumb, so exposed. So....silent. I smiled and it felt so sad, and I led them through the building, forgetting to show them at least half of our program. They left, happy with what they'd seen and, I think, oblivious to the damage they caused me.

I looked forward to this week, our Spring break. I just wanted to leave all the crap behind. I went to the grocery store this afternoon and ran into my daughters "surrogate sister." She tends to adopt people, and this particular girl is close to us both. She's gown into a responsible young woman. I am so proud of her. After work she went home, and apparently discovered her father had died earlier today. It's too soon for me to know many more details than that. But armed with just that much information, I knew what I had to do. I had to call my daughter, and give her some very ugly words without having the opportunity to shield her with a hug...

"Honey, it's mom. There isn't any good way to tell you this..."

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