We are never really ready for a final Goodbye.

By Glen Maylone

In Memory of:

"Shawnte Letrease Adams

July 4, 1975 ~ November 12, 2025"

When Loss Shows Up in the Middle of an Ordinary Week

I had lunch with a friend a few months ago.

Nothing dramatic. No big occasion. Just one of those “hey, it’s been too long, let’s get together” kind of lunches.

"One of many more to come, I was sure."

We sat outside. The weather was beautiful. We talked, laughed, traded a few war stories from work, and did that thing we all do:

“We’ve got to do this again soon.”

And then life did what life always does—rolled forward.

Work, appointments, errands, projects.

You know the drill.

Then, out of nowhere, the message came:

"She’s gone."

Just like that.

No long decline that I knew about. No months of slow goodbyes.

One moment she was someone I was overdue to text, and the next… I’m reading her obituary and trying to make my brain accept sentences like “was” and “survived by.”

If you’ve ever lost someone suddenly—someone who was still on your “we need to catch up” list—you know the weird dissonance of it.

Part of you is stunned.

Part of you is angry.

Part of you feels guilty.

And all of you just hurts.

The Memory Flood

After that initial shock, the numbness, the realization that "Yes, I did hear this correctly, this is real" sets in.

Then the flood of thoughts and memories come racing in.

I started thinking about the very day she came into my office while I was working at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to "introduce" herself.

I was brand new to that position, and she was coming to work for me in the contracting Branch.

Shawnte came in, sat down, gave me a long look like she was taking stock, and getting a gage on just who I was.

Then with a level of comfort like we had known each other for decades not days started off her intro with a short recap of her life up until that very moment, I was sure.

LOL, 99% of the conversation about who she was, where she came from, etc., and 1% about work.

And I loved that about her 100%

Over the next decade plus, that is how it was, just come in, and talk like old friends even when it came to the most sensitive things at work.

No beating around the bush, "let's get it out there, get the business done then chat a bit."

About anything and everything.

Random calls and texts for advice, random calls and texts for no reason at all. Just, "Whatcha doing?" "Heck, whatcha been doing"?

Silence for months at a time, then reconnection like only a weekend had passed.

Even after I moved on to another agency, she would call out of the Blue.

"Glen, really quick, I am getting ready to walk into the meeting about XYZ, how would you handle this?" "Gee, thanks for some time to analyze it before I answer Shawnte." "No time for that, what do you think."

And so it was for many years.

A friendship like old comfortable clothes you can just grab and throw on, and no matter what it just works.

A rare type of friendship, not based on a history or commonality.

Not based on anything transactional, or tangible.

Just one that was comfortable, safe, and enduring.

We liked and respected each other, for the people we are, no other reason at all.

It just clicked.

That is rare indeed!

The Quiet Shock of Loss

Parents. Children. Spouses, all are great shocks of course.

But there’s another kind of loss that doesn’t always get named: the people who weave in and out of our lives over decades.

Coworkers who become friends.

Friends who become family in everything but blood.

People we met at one job and somehow carried forward through three agencies and 20 years.

They live in that inner circle of “my people” that your heart just quietly assumes will always be there.

Until one day, they’re not.

And then the ordinary things hit hardest:

The last text you never answered.

The coffee you kept meaning to schedule.

The “we should do lunch again” that never got an “okay, what day?”

Loss has a way of shining a light on all the ways we assume we have more time.

Reading a Life in Past Tense

When I read her obituary, I saw pieces of her I never fully knew.

Oh sure, we had talked about anything and everything over the years.

I heard the fragments, the moments, the "I am proud of" or "This really upset me" things she talked about.

But reading it with intention is different.

The kid in Texas taking honors classes.

The student working at NASA as a teenager.

The young woman moving across the country to start a life in Maryland.

The mother whose two sons were “the light of her life.

” The consummate professional.

The introvert with the “gift of gab."

The one whose friends’ kids called "Aunt Tay."

I saw her dogs, her candles, her diamond art, her wrestling fandom, her Dallas Cowboys loyalty (we all have our crosses to bear), her spiritual growth, and her quote:

“Live your life free of worries and fears and love unconditionally with an open heart.”

That line stopped me. (I read it more than a few times).

Because that’s exactly what we talk about all the time when we say we want to live more intentionally, love people well, and use the time we have.

And she actually tried to live it.

That makes the loss hurt more… and mean more.

Makes me know I will miss her more.

What Loss Teaches (Whether We Want the Lesson or Not)

I don’t think loss ever shows up with lessons neatly gift-wrapped.

It just shows up—with empty chairs, unread messages, and a name that shifts from present tense to past.

But if we sit with it long enough, it does whisper a few things:

• We are all on borrowed time.

  Not in the motivational-poster way. In the very real “this might be your last lunch with this person, and you won’t know it” kind of way.

  
  

• People are deeper than the little slice we know.

  An obituary is just a summary of a summary. Every person we work with, joke with, roll our eyes with on late Teams calls—they’re walking around with entire universes inside them.

  
  

• Kindness matters more than we think.

  The things people remember most aren’t our titles, or our grades, or our “strategic initiatives. "They remember she showed up. She listened. She loved my kids. She was there.

  
  

• Love is not a soft word.

  We treat it like a Hallmark slogan. It’s not. It’s showing up when you’re tired. It’s answering the midnight call. It’s dropping a text when someone crosses your mind and not assuming you’ll get to it “later.”

  
  

Grieving the Person, Honoring the Pattern

I am deeply sad that my friend is gone.

Sad for her family.

Sad for her sons.

Sad for all the people who called her friend, mentor, aunt, mom, or “the one I could always talk to.”

And I’m sad for the future moments that will never be now:

The next lunch we joked about.

The stories we won’t get to tell.

The “you won’t believe what happened at work this week” conversations that will never happen.

(Oh, and we had a lot of these conversations)

But I’m also aware this is part of a larger pattern we’re all moving through as we get older.

We are entering the season of life where loss moves from the edges of the map closer to the center.

Parents.

Friends.

Coworkers.

People our age.

People younger than us.

It’s sobering.

But it’s also clarifying.

It makes you look at your own life and ask:

• Who do I keep meaning to call?

• Who do I genuinely love but never actually say it to?

• Where am I spending time out of obligation instead of affection?

• Who lifts me up just by being in the room?

Those are not rhetorical questions anymore. (Or they shouldn't be)

What We Do with the Time We Have

I don’t have a neat bow to tie on this.

There’s no “5 steps to overcoming loss” coming next.

Here’s all I’ve got:

• If someone crosses your mind, reach out.

• If you love someone, tell them.

• If you’ve been “meaning to get together,” put a date on the calendar.

• If you’re in a room full of people you love, look around and really see them.

  
  

  Fix it in your memory.

Our time with each other is finite.

The number of breakfasts, porch talks, text threads, silly memes, and long lunches we get with any one person is limited—and unknown.

So, while we’re here:

Let’s try to live a little more like her favorite quote:

“Live your life free of worries and fears, and love unconditionally with an open heart.”

For those of us still walking around on this side of the veil, that’s about as good a roadmap as we’re going to get.

Rest well, my friend. You will be missed and loved.

And for the rest of us?

Let’s make the next lunch, the next phone call, the next “hey, I was thinking about you” text actually happen.

Because one day, without warning, we will run out of “next times.”