Reading Time: 4 minutes
I worked in the USA for almost 25 years. This is actually the 2nd time a coworker or a colleague died while on the job. We (software engineers) all work from home at my current place, and I did see him once at a company function (probably Diwali?). And although we were not on the same team for the most part of my 4-year tenure here, we did have some interactions mostly around the app dev env setup, and so on. Recently due to re-org we are getting on the same team, and under the same manager. Because the new manager is basically a micro-manager, and we even briefly chatted about his management style. I did notice something a bit off because he seems quite weak, and slim on the video meetings (compared to last time I saw him in person, maybe 9 months ago). But I didn’t speculate much. The news came on 7/9/25. He died from cancer. This colleague is originally from India. And I am guessing he is probably a few years older than me.
Last time something like this happened, it was almost 20 years ago, when I was working for UGS/Siemens PLM software. It was an American colleague, and he worked for a special project for our company in Japan (more specifically Toyota’s main part supplier Denso) for a few years (maybe 5 years). And just got back. And he was diagnosed with liver cancer. He did smoke and I assume he drunk a bit when he was in Japan. He is a fun-loving American guy (probably my current age at the time he came back). And I believe he was not married or didn’t have kids. His mom was in 70s. Some of my female colleagues (a Japanese colleague come to mind, later she switched career form language localization to nurse) made some special comfort food when my colleague is gravely ill. So that was very nice of them (her). We used to be lunch buddies, and I recall riding on the gentleman’s GM Tahoe. I attended his visitation too. My former boss (also an American guy, probably in his early 50s), joked we can probably have a drinking party at the funeral home (because the mentioned colleague likes to drink or hangout with people). Note his joke was in good taste (per American standards).
Both colleagues died from cancer. I am going to the visitation for my colleague today, if nothing urgent happens. (Update 07-10-2025) I went. The visitation is a bit different from American ones (for obvious reasons), but I did like the music and so on. I was likely the only Chinese person there, there are a lot of Indian friends including a few I know, and a few Americans.
Other deaths or close call
Technically there was another young colleague died unexpectedly recently too: but I only knew his name before that and never knew him or worked with him in the past. While they didn’t explicitly say, I was under impression that the younger colleague died from suicide: probably related to PTSD from the military service. My impression is he was deployed in the war zone(s). And he worked for police department in St. Louis area, before joining my workplace (we are a veteran friendly place) as a software engineer (he attended code academy before the job). Now I remember his mom and stepdad’s sadness when we were there. Because he was probably in his early 30s or late 20s. His parents are probably my age 🙁
Couple years after I left UGS/Siemens, probably in holiday season of year 2010, I bumped into my former boss at Macys’, and he told me one of my colleagues (he was a few years younger than me) died suddenly (after I left the company in fall 2008). It made me quite sad, because I had quite a bit overlap with colleague and he is from India btw. To made things worse, in the company benefits annual enrollment, somehow, he didn’t indicate that he wanted the company provided life insurance. I believe his wife didn’t work and that’s just adding salt to injury.
A few years later at Mercy Health, I met a very nice colleague who was fighting the breast cancer. I don’t know how she did eventually. But I really liked the atmosphere my Mercy coworkers (that’s also the place call colleagues as coworkers) created to support her. She is wonderful too. She has some hens, and from time to time, she would bring eggs to the office, and colleagues can have the eggs (free will donation to a sort of colleague coffee/snack fund). The comradeship (we are in this together) is something I felt is solely missed in this post pandemic (work from home) work place.
Chinese colleague’s husband
About 20 years ago, I think it was year 2005, my Chinese colleague’s husband, who was 41, passed away due to cancer. I remember that because I was about 34, and he is about 7 years old. His wife and I worked at the same company then. I also attended the “celebration of life” at the time, at the request of my colleague (his wife). He seems like a nice very guy. I also recall one of his Chinese friend, a good friend, tries to come up with some humor or fun stories to cheer up the crowd. Note this was a bit unusual for Chinese people because from Chinese culture perspective, funeral is usually associated with a lot of tears. And I saw some of that today (7/10/25) at my India colleague’s visitation too.
PS:
I recall one of my AVP (Assistant Vice President, he is more like a VP if we are at a different organization, my current place is a bit thrift to hand out VP title to IT people), recently said (he actually said it in the visitation for the young colleague I mentioned above), one of the most important jobs for the leaders is showing up in occasions like this. I tend to agree. Note he said “leader” not “manager”. Everyone can be a leader at workplace. I recall also many years ago, while at UGS/Siemens, I drove to Illinois to attend a visitation for a colleague. And he was pleasantly surprised to say the least. So, there is that.
For those of us that are still in this world, I encourage us to be happy and healthy. And music is a great diversion or hobby to have, in my humble opinion.
