That’s the sort of feeling I get after reflecting upon today.

It started out with a phone call from Teresa:

“Jillian…?”

“Yes?” I say, trying to dress at top speed, as I will be late for the 15th time in a row for my first class of the day — Hell, of this week.

“Dean was trying to get a hold of you earlier…but I just wanted to let you know that Derek’s funeral is today and you can come if you want.”

“Thank you; I probably will,” I say, and we hang up shortly afterwards.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any ‘nice’ clothing with me. I just wore what I normally wear, jeans, and a t-shirt (a red ISU shirt, and oddly enough it is what I was wearing last Wednesday when I first heard about Derek, now that I think about it…)

I get to work at 10AM, and I turn to Dean who seemed about to tell me about Derek’s funeral. I told him that Teresa already told me, and I explained my situation to him.

He lent me his car to go and get clothing.

About 70 bucks later, I’m wearing nice black pants, and a black-with-grey-striped shirt, and nice shoes. Not bad for an entire outfit. ;-)

What I just remember the most is running into the mall (I asked Teresa if she would go with me). If it wasn’t for her help I probably would have picked some sort of women’s pants or something ha ha — good thing she was there. I just feel bad because all I kept on saying was “Hurry Teresa, we have 45 minutes left…Hurry Teresa, we have 30 minutes left, etc.” Even though she was in heels and I was still wearing my tennis shoes for my jeans. ;-)

The funeral was nice, all things considered. I think what really upset me was shaking hands with all of his family. When we got to his grandmother, I thought she was going to start crying because of everyone who showed up from his school and work. This is the part, which made me really sad.

There was an entire van-full of people (9 of us) from work, along with 3 other ‘van-fulls’ of people from Watterson. Apparently students were able to sign up to go, thus is why it was necessary to take 4 vans total.

I think I liked Pete’s remembrance story the best. In the middle of the Wake, they had a sort of interlude where people could come up and tell their memories of Derek.

Well, Pete told a story about how they took Derek’s monitor at work, and I remember coming down to their cubicle that day just as Pete was putting a sticky note on the monitor stand on Derek’s desk, which said, “monitor.” Teresa was telling Pete to hide it in a drawer, so he hid it in the bottom drawer at his desk.

What I did not remember, however, is what Pete told next. He said that the next day, they came into work, and not only had Derek taken Pete’s monitor, but he had also taken everyone else’s monitor as well from the Development Team and placed it on his desk. Derek thought he was really funny for doing that.

I think what I also remember most about that sort of interlude was the husband of a wife (They seemed to be a young couple; possible newly-weds?) who came up and told us a moving story about their wedding. Apparently, they wanted a small wedding, with just a few witnesses (Like three I believe). Well, one of them was Derek. It was so heart wrenching, especially when his wife started to cry, he choked up near the end of his beautiful memory and had to return to his seat to comfort her. I thought that was a very nice memory of Derek.

So Good-Bye, Derek Pagels. I hope your soul finds peace in it’s final resting place. I hope your family finds inner strength to carry on and support each other, as I hope the same for your friends and anyone close to you.

You will be missed by many, and I hope whenever I think of you I will smile at your memory.

Because I will.