Heavy Heart

I've been meaning to write my thoughts for a few days, just haven't had much motivation to do so. The last few days have been very hard on me and my heart is very heavy right now.
We've been very busy at home and at work and I was soo looking forward to having a good end of the week and getting on to the weekend. I left the house on Friday and decided to be bad and go by McDonalds to pick up some breakfast (hey, I was sick of dry cereal!). So, by doing that I got to work a few minutes later than usual, but not bad at all.
Just moments after I arrived at my desk one of my co-workers came by to tell me that I need to go see our Controller about something. This person is not one who would usually come to me to tell me to see the Controller and I could just tell by the sound of her voice that something was wrong. Fears started racing through my head and I had no idea what I was about to hear.
She told me that one of our Senior Accountants, Chuck, had passed away the night before while playing softball. At that point, I felt like a daggar had hit me.
Chuck was just 32 years old and had been at St. Jude for just a little over a year. In January he and two others had been re-organized and started reporting to the same boss as me. That meant that we did some cubicle shuffling and Chuck had moved back to my little corner of the office. Actually, I had moved to a new cube and he had moved into my space.
The last few months at work have been a LOT more fun. A HUGE reason for this was Chuck. He was funny, smart, a goofball and an all around good guy. He had a 3 year old son, just a few weeks younger than Cackie, so I would often talk to him about having a boy and what to expect, etc. Just last week I trained him on how to take over a few things while I was out of the office on leave to get Owen. It's so hard to believe now that he won't be there to exchange stories with and laugh and shoot hoops with our Nerf basketball net.
One reason that this hurts so bad is that it's not the first time it has happened. In December 2005 I came into work on a Monday to find out that my right hand man, the guy who took on soo much so that I could take time off to be home with Cackie had passed away suddenly at home. Clint was just 29 and died suddenly of an anuerism. His death was a major shock to all of us and to this day, I think about him often.
Then 6 months after Clint passed away, one of our employees who had only been there a few months died in a 4-wheeler accident. Jason was young as well, maybe his early 30's.
And now Chuck.
So, my heart is very heavy now, full of grief. How does this happen to one office, three times within a two and a half year period?
I'm partially dreading going to work tomorrow. But, on the other hand, I look forward to being with my friends who are grieving with me. One thing I have learned through all our losses is that I work with some super amazing people. In reality we spend more waking hours together than we do with our spouses or other friends and I am soo blessed to have such a wonderful group of people to work with. And no matter what, even though we hurt so bad when we lose someone who we are close to, I won't stop getting to know my co-workers and caring about them.
Please keep Chuck and his family in your thoughts and prayers. I for one will miss that big goofball!