One of my colleagues has been expecting his first child and I had wondered whether it was about time. I finally got the email today, and in his excitement he forgot to even let us know the cute baby’s name. Only a few hours after I hit the send button to the congrats email, I heard the news – Steve Jobs died.
It came so unexpectedly – I was walking back from the microkitchen with a tea in my hand wondering how much longer this day is going to last, when my coworker suddenly raised her head and just said it like that: “Steve Jobs just died.” I took a few seconds to process the information and exclaimed something unintelligible, then hurried back to my desk to read the news, as if hoping that it was a really bad joke.
But it was true, and I was sad. Steve Jobs was one of those people born with charisma and energy and brilliance that you can’t help but admire. He didn’t say much about himself to the world. We only got a sense of who he is through the products and the companies he built. He wanted to make a dent in the universe, set out to do just that, and left a pretty big dent all right.
One life perishes and another begins. At times like this, we are reminded of how similar we all are. We are born, we grow to see the world, then we leave. Yet we each have our unique journeys, and I hope that dear baby L will have a very special one. Because as some other wise person once said, everyone dies, but not everyone lives.
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