Hard to say

One of the professors I admired most, both as a student and later as a staff member of my college, died this weekend of cancer. We'd known around campus for about eight months that she was very ill, and recently we even began admitting to ourselves that her death was imminent.

As the college webmaster, I was told a couple of weeks ago to be ready to post a notice of arrangements when the time came. I tried to help prepare some of my other friends who knew and loved her. When I found out this morning, I went about my assigned task. My colleague emailed me Cynthia's obituary. Someone else sent a photo. We had all had time to prepare.

As I was formatting the text and preparing the image of this lovely woman, I thought that this is one of the stranger aspects of my job. A few years back, on a different site, I had to post the tragic news of a friend's sudden death. If I momentarily felt bitter about the task, of being a literal harbinger of doom, I also realized I was glad I was the one to do it as my own small testimony of honor.