Kim was the Program Coordinator for our School of Phlebotomy. She passed away unexpectedly on February 7th 2010. She will be greatly missed.
We are all skating on thin ice. We learned that truth in our office a few weeks ago when a member of our staff passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.
Kim Baker came to us from Ohio after we conducted a national search for a program coordinator and instructor to run our newly opened School of Phlebotomy. She took to the classroom like a natural, and assumed a command of it that bordered on poetry. I know because I sat in on her class for an hour (as part of her six-month evaluation) and watched her work her magic. It would turn out to be her last day teaching.
Two days later, Super Bowl Sunday, Kim was getting ready to come to my house to watch the big game. I had invited the staff over to watch our beloved Colts give the Saints a lesson in championship football. She picked up her laundry, came back to her apartment, warmed up her dish to pass, and suddenly developed chest pains. She called 911 and fell silent while reporting her symptoms. Just that quickly, Kim's skate on life's thin ice was over. She was only 53.
Without warning and without notice, Kim was plucked from our midst, leaving us clinging only to the unsatisfying remnants of memory. Up to her last day, it had been a fine skate for Kim. She loved phlebotomy, and her patients and students respected her expertise. She loved baseball and golf, and never met a stranger. I’ve heard her tell many prospective students that she could honestly say there’s never been a day when she didn’t love her job as a phlebotomist. We should all be so lucky.
As I write this, I’m at the Clinical Laboratory Educator’s conference in Biloxi, Mississippi. Kim was excited about coming with us and attending the sessions. I can’t help but imagine her across the table for our meals, hearing about the revelations each presentation inspired in her and how she might implement them in our school, introducing her to all my friends here, and watching her bask in the educational elements, exploit the opportunities, and create her own network from which to draw long after we’ve all gone home.
We had big plans for Kim; but God’s plans were bigger.
I'm not sure it's this way with everyone's passing, but her passing has brought out a lot of good. This kind of thing makes me think about what I need to do before my own skate is over. Making sure decisions are made in advance so my loved ones don't have to make them under duress; creating a succession plan for the company; making sure no day is spent in anguish over things petty or piddly; taking steps to experience more of what God has created for me to enjoy on this pond; and looking forward with greater anticipation when I’m lifted from it.
Kim’s passing is also bringing a lot of people together. We’ve bonded with Kim’s family more than I would have thought, and there’s talk about a scholarship in her name. When Kim moved away from her kids and grandkids to become our program coordinator, her family grew to include us. We just didn’t know each other until she passed. When her kids came down from Ohio to empty her apartment, they asked me to join them for lunch at her favorite restaurant in her newly adopted home. As we all sat at the table relishing in the bittersweet poignancy of the moment, I have to believe Kim was pleased we were bonding.
Kim’s legacy will live on in every student she taught. Their technique, professionalism, and dedication to the standards will forever be part of the magic they work with every patient they draw. Few will forget what she brought to the classroom. Nor will we forget what she brought to the company. There’s no replacing Kim here. She will have a successor in time, though. Someone who will bring their own unique talents, gifts, and passions to the position, and who we will welcome enthusiastically the same way we welcomed Kim. God’s already got it figured out for us… and I’m sure Kim’s involved in it all somehow.
Yesterday, my good friend Tim Randolph, whom I’ve written of frequently in this newsletter in the context of his Haitian ministry, reminded me of something I’m just now grasping. That we shouldn’t feel sorry for Kim. It’s natural to feel sorry for myself for being deprived of her continued friendship, personality, gifts and laughter. But Kim’s not just in a better place, she’s in a perfect place; surrounded by love that neither she nor we have ever known. Who am I to deprive her of that, much less feel sorry for her? My sorrow has to be for my loss, and the loss her loved ones feel, but for nothing else.
Even though Kim’s not here with me in Biloxi, she’s in her element. Her true, eternal element where the veins never roll, the revelations never cease, and the saints always prevail.
Kim might have missed the Super Bowl, but she’s got the best seat in the house for the greatest exhibition of all.