Well, I think of it every year. Today would have been my previous boss's 70th birthday. Like a true Scorpio, he died a sudden and shocking death.
He had hand picked me when I left that school to work for him. "You're the absolute right person for this job. When can you disentangle yourself from these people?" That was March 21, 2001. I said two weeks, to be professional. I wanted to leave right then, but I didn't. I wanted to gloat that I was getting away and there was nothing they could do about it. I was struck by not only how professional and cordial he was, but also how much he looked like my father. They could have been brothers, although Dad was an only child like myself. Wick was a father figure to all of us in the old membership department.
In August 2002, his throat cancer came back. He kept it under wraps for as long as he could. In October, we had a birthday cake for him and he had a few bites. His voice was pretty raspy, given his Texarkana accent, but you could tell he was struggling. That was the last birthday we all celebrated as a group before Baldo the Snake and Sad Sack took over. Ironically, it was Wick that had something to do with keeping them "down" in their jobs, meaning no promotions without results. These two had moved laterally around the company, but basically, it was the titles that changed. Wick used to work in HR before he became VP of Membership. Smart guy.
He left to have surgery and they had to put a tracheal tube in his throat. His wife, Margy, and his daughter, Shawn, came to the office to pick up contracts, emails, cards and jokes sent to him from other media members (Cox, Advance, Wall Street Journal) as well as silly things we would cut out for him. He and I shared a love for three things: cats, pigs, and frogs. Ro, his assistant--and a dear friend--loved frogs, too. I used to cut out cartoons and wacky articles from the New Yorker. We even shared a big laugh over one of Kinky Friedman's articles from AARP magazine that my mother had shown me. Where do you get a boss like that? Someone who'll not only take you under his wing, point out your mistakes and tell you how to improve, but whose inbox is filled with clippings, Far Side cartoons, and ceramic pigs as paper weights? Someone who'll gladly shut down the office to celebrate a birthday, a pregnancy, a promotion or a transfer with cakes from Zabars? I can only hope to work for someone with the qualities this man had. He was truly one of a kind.
On February 3, 2003, my other boss Dan called me at home. Any boss calling you at home is not a good thing. "I have some bad news, Anne," he said.
"Please don't let this be Wick," I thought to myself. I bit my lip and paused.
"Wick passed away on the 1st. They were on their way to the hospital, he and Margy, he had stopped breathing. He started to bleed through his neck and the choking got worse. He collapsed in Margy's arms. She pulled over and called 911 on the highway near Millburn. They couldn't save him."
The tears came. I was blubbering and it really hurt. Dan consoled me, but I really felt horrible. We were people first, then an office. Wick always made that clear.
He had been sending us emails about how he was doing swallow therapy, about how not talking was bothering the hell out of him, and how he had to fight for a spot on the couch with his black and white cat. He continued to put on his reading glasses and pore through articles, contracts, emails, the papers--Wall Street Journal, The NY Times, The Advance. He kept in touch with all the bureau chiefs throughout the country, and even people at Canadian Press. He was busier at home with no voice than when he was in the office.
We all realized that the last birthday cake we had was for him and that--literally--was his last birthday. He was 65 and died on the first of the month, just like my dad. They were both sports writers, too and worked in the newspapers on some level their entire lives. They were also born in October. The parallels hit me and sent chills up my spine. Wick was also a great fan of my skating when we were at Rockefeller Center. I would run down during lunch hour with my skates and all the execs commented on it. I confessed I rode the zamboni and Wick loved it. "I hope I get to ride one of those things one day, " he told me.
Margy and Shawn came by to visit and we had a memorial in the board room. A formal memorial for all his friends and professional colleagues came late in February. My favorite picture of him was taken in his childhood home. He was dressed as a cowboy and he was reaching for his gun like John Wayne in "Shane." Wick was six years old when it was taken, which would have made it 1943. He never lost that charm. We laughed, we cried. We ate all his favorite foods, and yes, there was cake.
Last year on this very same day, one of my remaining colleagues passed my desk. He would walk by Wick's memorial plague and rub his hand across it as he descended the stairs. I would watch him do this exactly 15 minutes before I left my desk to go home. It moved me every time. I told him that it was Wick's birthday and he stopped to talk to me.
"I've got to call Margy," he said, with a huge grin spreading across his face. He and I were the only ones to know he wasn't just a plaque hanging on a wall.
Does anyone else remember? I doubt it, and that's another reason why I left. It might just be the reason I'm still struggling to find a job.
I want excellence. I want passion and caring. I want correct spelling, a professional demeanor and a sense that if all is not right that an entire team will work to make it so.
Am I asking for too much? I don't think so.
And Wick would surely agree. He was a gem. I love him. I miss him. He represents a part of me that hasn't died yet, that will not be killed nor silenced. Even though I struggle, I've got his good name to mention.
Thank you for believing in me, Wick. Maybe for all of us, as separate as we've gone. I still need you.
I always will.
