A Sad Day

Peg Johnson, who worked part-time at Village Stationery, passed away this morning at her home in Omaha.  She was diagnosed with leukemia on 28 August 2008.  The wake is tomorrow night and the funeral is Wednesday afternoon, both in Oakland, Iowa.

When Peg knew she was going into the hospital for chemotherapy she had initially said she’d wanted me to teach her to knit.  As it turned out, she felt she had enough to keep her occupied through that first bout of chemo, so she asked me to hold off on the lessons.

As it turned out, the medication used in the second round of chemotherapy was what did her in.  She went home from the hospital this past Wednesday (22 Oct) when it was clear that she could not recover from the damage that had been done to her body.

Peg was in her late 50s/early 60s.  She was retired from a career with the American Red Cross.  She had a great sense of humor and a warm heart.

The world is a little more empty now that she is gone.

I like to think that she is now communing with the likes of author Tony Hillerman (who entered heaven’s gates yesterday afternoon), jazz great Duke Ellington, the gorgeous Paul Newman, the generous soul of Mother Theresa, and all of the others who have gone before her.  No, I don’t know whether any of these people were Peg’s favorites — they just came to my mind (although I’m sure Paul Newman was at the top of the list for her!) — and I rather have it in my heart that Peg was as great and as wonderful as any of them.  At least, she was that memorable to those of us who knew her.