Thursday, July 2, 2020

I hear loud crying from the boss’s office. A coworker emerges. Tears thickening her voice, she tells the people in the hall that one of our programmers has died. I don’t hear many details. I don’t understand much of what I hear. He had sat in the cube across from mine. He was quieter than most of the others, except when he coughed, which he did increasingly over the past several months. His English was good. He had lived in Philadelphia for a while. I hear that he was in his mid-fifties, one of the younger programmers on the team. I hear that doctors had told him that the cough wasn’t anything serious, until it became impossible to handle. He had been in the hospital for a week or so. The last person he spoke to was the programmer who had retired the day before. He died suddenly. I haven’t heard anything definitive about what happened. I understand that it wasn’t the virus. He wasn’t Jewish, but I hear that his father was, so he was allowed to immigrate from Russia many years ago. I hear random bits of information. There is to be a funeral, but I don’t hear where or when. In the afternoon, most of my coworkers suddenly disappear. As is usual here, the funeral is right away. He is to be buried immediately. I have a commitment in the evening, so I can’t go, even if I had known sooner. I hear from those who are there that it is a simple, secular burial. Most of the people are from the office. One of them texts to the team: “There is no ceremony. No reading of Psalms. Nothing.” The boss gives an impromptu eulogy which is, I hear, quite moving. Later, someone sets out sweets in the office kitchen. A neatly printed sign above them shows the programmer’s name and “May his memory be blessed.” We return to work. The new guy is set up at the now-empty desk. The boss removes the programmer’s phone number from the office messaging group.