Requiescat in Pace, Larry Archer

I was sitting in a meeting yesterday at work and briefly stepped out to use the Ladies Room.  As I was walking out of our work area, our Office Administrator (OA) was walking back in and looked to be crying. I stopped in my tracks and somebody asked me if I knew why she was crying.  Since I didn't know, I turned around and went back into our work area to find out what was wrong.  At that time I saw our Program Manager and another Manager standing there with her and I looked askance at the PM as to what was going on. He asked me if I had heard the terrible news that one of our Operations Managers named Larry Archer had died. 

I was shocked to hear of his death as he had just been at work all of the previous day, as usual.  He was supposed to be on vacation on this day.  From what I understand, he and his wife were at Dinner in a restaurant when Larry had a fatal heart attack at 67 years old. He had worked on our project for 18 years and now he was gone, with no warning whatsoever!  Everybody at work is so shocked and saddened by his death!

It's so strange that one could learn so much about somebody after they pass away.  I read his obituary today and learned that he was an Irish Catholic and went to Catholic School, just like me.  He also worked overseas and traveled the world extensively like I have. He has the most magnificent and upbeat obituary that I've ever read and I love how it tells of his travels, how he met his wife, and how he proposed to her in April in Paris!  How could one ever know that Larry was such a romantic man from just seeing him at work from time to time?

Allen Family Funeral Options did a beautiful job on his online memorial!  They have a wonderful picture there of him and a 45 minute tribute video with beautiful music and pictures of him and his family throughout the years.   Here is the picture that they have of him on his tribute page:

Lawrence Joseph Archer

It's such a sad and lonely experience when somebody you've known for a long time at work or elsewhere passes away.  It leaves a big, empty spot there at work. It also forces everybody to think about their own mortality.

Larry got really close to retirement, but never quite made it.  It's very sad that he had to die right before an upcoming trip to see all of his family in New York!

I was reading some of the condolences left for him on his tribute page by people from work. One guy said that he had worked with Larry for the past 18 years and would really miss him and the emails that Larry sent to him in Latin.  This really made me smile as my bet is that both this guy and Larry learned Latin serving as altar boys, just like my brothers did when we were growing up!

This said, I just want to say some last words to Larry in Latin . . . Requiescat in pace, Larry Archer.  You will never be forgotten by the people you worked with here in Dallas!