Goodbye Chris

Past week was kind of difficult for me. Just a little over a week ago - on Tuesday, I was going to my first track workout with TNT. I left work a bit too late, so I was hoping that the commute will be not too bad. Unfortunately almost right away I've hit a back-up because of an accident. I didn't get to see much - it was pretty much already cleaned up, but I noticed that it involved a motorcycle. The next day, I learned that a co-worker and a fellow boot-camper - Chris - had a motorcycle accident shortly after leaving work. I immediately put things together. He was pretty badly hurt, and was being treated at the Stanford ICU. Over the past week all of us at work waited impatiently for any news of Chris'es recovery. Unfortunately the news coming were not exactly what we've hoped for. First we learned that he had a serious damage to both C1, C2 vertebrates and brain stem, in addition to other injuries. Chris was a great person, very active and full of life, so all of us at the boot-camp wanted to cheer him up. We signed a card for him, with words of encouragement and went to deliver it today, hoping to bring at least some joy into his life. We've got to the hospital around 4pm, and when we've made it to the ICU waiting room and found Chris'es family, we've learned that our card arrived about an hour too late. I don't know how average person does react (or should react) to news like that, but I myself just want to scream inside of me, something like this "this is not true!... this is a mistake!... that's impossible!....". It hurts even more when you feel that you failed... If you were only an hour earlier, if....
There's no turning clock back, there's no changing of the past. I know that life must go on, but I also know that I'll remember Chris forever. Not just because of the tragic end to his accident, but because he was a great person, a great colleague and a great fellow boot-camper.

Goodbye Chris!