GOODBYE TO MY FRIEND, DONNA

Hello again, Blogging Buddies. I am afraid this post is not fun nor is it humorous.

During my tenure as a Project Manager at AT&T Wireless Services, I was privileged to meet a lot of folks from all over the U.S. I was part of a National team within the IT department and we handled our call centers which were in a lot of places! We held two National team meetings while I was part of the organization and it was great fun to put faces with names and voices we had heard on conference calls.

I will tell you that there are a LOT of those folks with whom I remain in contact even now. Some subscribe to this blog. Others I hear from sporadically... but I do hear from them. The network was large and spread-out... but we all felt like family and we shared the good times and, unfortunately, the bad.

I had been on calls with a young lady named Donna who was located in the Pittsburgh area. She struck me as someone who was thorough, demanding, inquisitive, and sharp. While I would not have wanted to be on the receiving end of some of her more pointed questions, I enjoyed working with her. When we were finally able to meet in person, it was great fun. Here was this TINY little brunette with "big hair" whose voice simply did not match the person!! The voice was WAY bigger than the person!! Most of us will draw a picture in our heads of folks we talk to but have not met. Donna just flat-out did NOT match my head-picture!! LOL!! Of course, she was now meeting a big ol' brunette with "little hair" so perhaps she was just as surprised as I. I don't know.

At any rate, we worked together on some projects during my tenure there. We were in contact on a business level... but also on a personal level. Oh... I didn't mention that she discovered she was pregnant with her third child during one of our National team meetings, did I? She wasn't feeling well. I took some food up to her room and we bemoaned her "illness" which was intruding on our ability to have a good time!! We were both surprised and laughed heartily when we later discovered her "illness" was Kevin. :) Kevin is nine years old now. His older brother, Eric, is 15. His older sister, Samantha ("Sam"), is 17. All three lost their mother last night and I cannot even imagine how they are handling that.

You see, Donna was diagnosed with cancer on June 23, 2008. Interestingly enough, I had called her, on a whim, on June 25, 2008, which is when she told me about the diagnosis. She underwent surgery in July 2008 and endured chemo and radiation. She discovered the cancer had spread in October of 2008. She endured more treatments. She returned to work in February of 2009 but the cancer returned in April. In June of 2009, the docs advised 8-10 months without chemo... maybe 2-3 months more if chemo was used. Donna decided the treatment was just too hard and took too much from her so she opted to skip it this time. I applaud that decision. I understand it.

Donna had a lot of faith and believed that God would do whatever was His plan for her... but she would fight hard to live just in case that's what He wanted! :) She and her husband kept their children very much in-the-loop about the situation and she indicated they drew strength from each other throughout the ordeal.

Donna scheduled vacation for July 21st through August 4th to visit with her family in San Diego. We emailed back and forth and I know she had a great trip and enjoyed seeing everyone. By early October, there were problems that required another surgery. Donna sent out a prayer request to a lot of "Prayer Warriors" she knew were pulling for her. I sent her a short response to let her know I was thinking about her. Her response to me was "LOV YA!"

I received a funny Thanksgiving email from one of my many crazy friends. I forwarded it to Donna as I knew she enjoyed a good laugh. Her reply to me (which I did not know would be the last one I ever received) was "You always find ways to make me have such good laughs! Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful!"

I sent an email on December 23rd and, when I did not hear from her, I called her home. I spoke with Gary, her husband, who advised they were in the process of bringing her home from Hospice. That was pretty much all I needed to know. I told him to have her call me if she felt up to it. If not, I understood.

On January 5th, I sent Donna a final email. It was one of my usual, rambling, totally disconnected emails about life, liberty, and the pursuit of something. :) I made certain she knew how much she had meant to me over the years. I am hopeful that Gary was reading her emails to her if she was unable to read them herself. I feel pretty sure that was the case.

So, today I received an email from another former AT&T pal. He had gotten word from yet another AT&T pal that Donna had passed on to her next project on Thursday, January 14th, 2010. All I know for certain is that if there is ANYthing in Heaven that needs to be improved, Donna will be lining up the appropriate personnel and making calls to those impacted in order to get that improvement up and running as soon as possible!! In the meantime, since I can't be part of that particular project, I just want to say Goodbye to my friend, Donna.


I'll miss ya', toots!!! Save me a place!

Until next time...