Do you know...

How much we love you?
How we depend on you?
How much it means that you know how to handle each one of us?
That you hold us together?
That your ability to judge our mood, what sort of a day, week, month or year we are having is one of the things that keeps us going?
That because you know exactly what to say, how to say it and when the most appropriate time to say it, you are worth your weight in gold, a hundred times over?

9 years, Myra has been my "work mum". Through thick and thin, good days, and more recently, bad days. She has advised me, counselled me, listened to me, laughed with me, and at me, joked with me, let me cry on her shoulder, hugged me when I have needed to be hugged, shared my anger and my frustrations and more importantly, has been a part of my celebrations and joyful moments.

Not only has she done this for me, but she does it for all of us, in different ways. She has been a constant, steadying factor for us all.

Tonight, the senior team took her for a meal, the pre-cursor to her 'do' next week, which is the pre-cursor to her retirement in a fortnight.

We are pleased that she is finding time for herself, but I know that I am not the only one who feels the mounting sense of impending loss. People come and go in our lives. Some people touch our hearts and stay there forever.

Myra is one of the ones who stays.

xxx

(it's a crap photo - forgot to change the focal point on my camera as I wanted to catch her opening the card that a colleague had bought for her...so the window and background are beautifully sharp, my main subject is blurry and not sharp. Pah. For a woman with aspirations to take decent photos, sometimes I let myself down horribly!)