Losing A Friend

In my 33 years, I can honestly say that I have never been so shocked and heartbroken as I was on Thursday, October 28, 2010, at 8:22 a.m.

Wednesday was a normal day, for the most part. It was rather stressful at work, but today I am thankful for that situation.

I had found out a couple of days before that a dear friend's Mom had passed away, so my plan was to attend her funeral. It was a rather nasty day out and then a work situation occurred that caused me to see Brent that day and miss the funeral. I had heard his voice for a couple of hours which was pretty much the norm, but we hadn't seen each other until approximately 2:30 p.m. For the next two hours, he and another co-worker were helping me. At 4 p.m., Brent was saying bye to everyone, laughing and smiling, as he usually did. He stopped by my cube, insisted on throwing away someone's foreign coffee cup (totally funny because he never threw out his own cups) and gave me a giant high five (they always had to sting) as he was leaving and I said, "Thank you. Thanks for helping me."

Later that night I couldn't remember something Brent told me during all of the drama so I texted him and he responded. It was a funny question with a funny answer. When he replied I was putting Ryan in the bath and decided I would reply the next day. I went on about the usual evening routine and woke up the next morning to start the usual morning routine...so I thought.

I sent Brent a message at 7:19 a.m., took Ryan down to the car, buckled him up, gave everyone hugs and kisses, and came upstairs to get ready. I never looked at my phone until I was pulling out of the driveway. There wasn't a text from Brent, but one from my friend Adam, "Call me ASAP." My immediate reaction was "hmm, he must not be able to support a meeting and needs me." I never thought about why I had not received a response from Brent. At 8:22 a.m., I called Adam only to hear the worst possible words come out of his mouth, "Erika. Brent Mitchell died last night." I have never experienced anything like this before. I can still feel this awful pressure in my chest when I think back to that conversation. Disbelief. Denial. Shock. I hear Adam telling me, "You may have heard about a Good Samaritan who died on 65 last night...he fell from a bridge..." All of these words I'm hearing, but thinking "this can't be! I was texting with him last night. I sent him a message this morning!"

I don't remember much of my drive in that morning. I had to stop at Ryan's daycare to see the kids' Halloween parade. I watched it through tears and then headed on to work. I'm not sure what I expected when I got to work, but I opened the door to see two co-workers and I lost it. I thought "just make it to your desk." As I'm walking down the aisle, I see another co-worker with his head in his hands. I pass by Brent's cube and finally made it to my desk. Instead of sitting down to process everything, look up information on the news, I had to go support a meeting that Brent would normally support with me. So I'm all alone in a room without Brent. There are signs of Brent from recent days though...an open bag of peanut M&Ms and the old, plaid jacket in his seat that we all joked about...but no Brent. I got the meeting up and running and sat in the back room and sobbed.

I printed his picture from the news article on al.com and put it on the outside of his cabinet. I wasn't sure how everyone would respond. Regardless, the look on his face is how we remember Brent -- always smiling and his eyes twinkling. He was a lot of fun. He never stopped helping...even if it was finding a strap to replace my broken laptop strap (I'm sorry if someone at work is missing a perfectly good laptop strap, lol).

Every day it seems to get easier, but for at least a week it was very hard to concentrate at work. We all keep waiting for him to plop down in our cube to chat. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss him sitting at his desk or flopping down in my chair to ask me something random.

So, to our friend and co-worker who left this world a "hero" and "a Good Samaritan"...there are so many people who miss you. I wish I could give you a high five right now. I am so happy that I have that last memory of you with a big ol' grin followed by a big, stinging high five.

I keep remembering bits and pieces of conversation that day. The tone in his voice. What I will never forget is the last thing I said to him in person. It could have been "See ya." "Have a good night." "Bye dude!" "You rock!" Instead, I said, "Thank you. Thanks for helping me."