My colleague, Denise Woodbury, passed away on Sunday. We’d all just seen her at graduation the day before, so this is a huge surprise.
No details are available, but there is no reason to think it was anything other than natural causes related to her disabilities.
I feel a little bit of acute guilt. We had a project to get done, and we’d made a plan to talk it over around the graduation festivities. We didn’t get to it though. I thought about calling her on Saturday night, but I let it slide. Now I’ll always wonder if I’d called that evening whether things might have gone differently.
I headed up the search committee that brought Denise back to SUU in 2004. I never had any regrets – she was a great colleague who gave 110% when her health permitted.
She wasn’t sure if she should come back – she’d been happy in her previous position. After she did, I made a point of asking her at the end of each academic year whether she still thought it was a good choice. From completion of her first year, she never hesitated to say that it was.
Grades aren’t due yet, so I hadn’t asked for this year’s answer yet. I guess I never will.
