I miss Ken a lot lately. He wasn't my husband. He wasn't my boyfriend. He was just a guy I worked with. I hated him the first year I knew him. HATED him. I hear his wife felt the same way when she first met him. He was "that guy". The football player in junior high who made fun of all of the not-so-popular girls. (That would be me.)

But I got to know him and somehow he became my work-husband. I supplied him with band-aids and Advil and I sewed on buttons. He listened when I was having a bad day. Of course, the next day he would tell me my ass looked huge, but whatever.

I could tell Ken anything, but I knew he would go home and tell his wife. That was ok because she is AWESOME. He loved her more than I have ever seen one person love another. I hope she knows how much he loved her. I have a really hard time making friends, but Ken was always there. He always gave me an amazingly hard time, but I knew that deep down, he cared about me and I loved him so much. He was my very best friend.

I knew he drank. He used to sweet-talk me into going to the liquor store for him during my lunch break. I usually bought him a huge bottle of Southern Comfort for Christmas and his birthday. He drank every night, but I never thought anything of it. It's not like he came to work drunk or anything. He only drank at home, in the evening.

January 10, 2008, while I was on maternity leave with my third child, his beautiful wife came home to find him, in bed, dead of acute pancreatitis. The doctors attributed it to his drinking. He was 40 years old. I cannot even begin to imagine what that must have been like for her. His son was two years old at the time. I loved Ken so much. He was my dearest friend. I wish I could have saved him, but I wonder...do I wish that for HIM or for ME?

Ken Griffin 1967-2008