Ahhh, today was a day filled with feels. A coffee catch-up gathering at a place I worked for a couple of years, 30 years ago….for a friend-colleague-academic-sister who worked there for many years, until recently. So many faces from today and from yesteryear. A retired research scientist I hadn’t seen in so very long, all the way up to a newly hired research scientist replacing his now retired replacement.
Another retired researcher who was strongly connected to our lab, and who the one being remembered worked, before being inherited by his successor.
Technicians, biologists, academic colleagues. Our graduate supervisor, unexpected since he’d originally told me he wouldn’t be able to make it. I think I’ve seen him more in the past few months than in the past few years. I had the feels under wraps, until he stood to say some words. Then the feels came spilling out of my eyeballs.
Some of her artwork spread around. A mutual heart asked about a little cartoon she’d drawn me years earlier, could I scan it and send it to him?
Of course.
It lived at my desk at the downtown office. When I left there, it moved to my hatchery office. When she died it came home and found a new place in my home office where it makes me smile every day that I lay eyes on it.
The story?
I used to travel to the Island, a lot. I’d often be heading to Campbell River or beyond, and I would often transport biological samples for the group the worked in.
Sperm…fish sperm to be precise….fish sperm from transgenic salmon.
It is also called “milt”.
One night, her manager, Bob, came to my house at 10pm with a cooler filled with bags of milt. Kirk was shaking his head because after I brought the cooler inside, all of the bags of milt were carefully opened so that they had oxygen, and put in the fridge.
The price of living with a biologist.
Honestly, it’s not the weirdest thing that has spent time in our food fridge in the name of science.
One day Ros stopped by to see me and brought me a fun little bit of art….this cartoon. It will always bring a smile to my face because it made me laugh, and the sentiment of thanx was appreciated.
Ahhhh dammit. It was really wonderful to get together with people who loved her and talk about how wonderful she was. She was a generous and deeply gracious person, and she is so deeply missed.
