Goodbye my friend.

Today in the life of me is absent of any jokes, cute stories about my kids or wild adventures. Today I am filled with complete and utter sadness. After five years battling cancer my teacher, mentor, boss and friend passed away from cancer.

There are no words to aptly describe the tightness of my chest or the sadness in my heart. I feel like someone has sucker punched me.

Cathy was my manager, a very intelligent, wise and caring person who taught me an incredible lot about myself, people management and about the incredible strength one woman can have when faced with the impossible. She was in incredible pain at the end but despite this the last time I saw her she had a smile on her face and optimism that I cannot even fathom.

So I sit here, in the office, comforting people when I can, talking to my team, going through the motions, when really, all I want to do is curl up into a little ball and cry. I can console myself with the fact that she is no longer in pain but in reality all I can think about is that an incredible light has been extinguished and will not burn again.

I want to let you all know how special you all are and that I care, because you never know when you can tell someone again.