It needs lot of courage and truthfulness to write such a letter
Yesterday, I got a mail from Dan, someone with whom I worked few years back, with a subject EOS/EOL. The letter touched me so much that, I literally cried and kept thinking about his perspectives the entire night. Here is how it goes :
All,
If you don’t know me (or don’t like me, whichever) you can delete this message now.
Weeellll, the time has come to say goodbye. After 30 years at this company I have seen a lot of changes, some good, some bad. I will keep to myself which has come out the winner. I’ve had the honor of working with a large number of you through the years in multiple areas of the company from on-site support , Sales , Legal etc. During that time and within those groups I have worked and interacted with a wide variety of people and groups (virtually every area of the company with the possible exception of Senior Management (whoops, no I had to deal with them too in the hazy and dim past).
As some of you know I have come to the point where I can no longer work at a level that is up to what I would consider acceptable standards. Those that know me (and maybe even some that don’t) know that I tend to set the bar high both in what I expect of others and what I expect of myself. For those still not aware, I have spent much of the last ten years battling cancer. OK, the reality is that it was the first year (2013) and last year (2020/2021) where the battle occurred with the intervening time spent looking over my shoulder waiting for the other shoe to drop (did I get enough overused sayings in yet?).
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your personal point of view) the cancer has won. The war, if you will, has taken a rather serious turn in the last few months and the doctors have given me a month or two left. I did choose to continue working as long as I could (mostly for the health insurance but also as a distraction and form of therapy).
For those of you I have had the pleasure of working with through the years (and over 30 years I’m finding that’s a long list) my apologies. Really, I wish you all the best, both happiness and success, for your future(s).
For those of you who have had the fortune not to have worked with me, count your blessings 😊. (and I still wish you all the best).
I will still be on email for a while and you can also reach me at (also as it turns out for a while):
<mail id>
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This email is going out to the XX group as the ALL Company group is a restricted group. Feel free to forward to others outside of this group that may have an interest in my demise/leaving.
‘So long and thanks for all the fish’
‘I’m not quite dead yet… I’m feeling much better now.. I feel happy…’
Title
Dan works as a Security Architect, and we crossed our paths for the first time, while doing code review of the work I did. There were some vulnerabilities reported in a third party library for SAML as part of a dynamic scan, and the code I wrote was using them. So his approval was needed to make sure, we can release the code with known vulnerabilities in that third party library. But as he said, he always tend to set the bar high both in what he expected of others and what he expect of himself. So he wanted to go little farther and understand the whole context before approval. Once he confirmed that what was reported by the tool matched with my explanation of why we can release, he recognized my expertise and then from there, we collaborated on few occasions. But little did I realize, he was going through all these pain and never let others even know about it, and always gave his best in work.
Life always gives us chance to be truthful and committed. This letter symbolizes what kind of person Dan must be. Truthful and committed to his word - Isn't that our conscience ? There is no better reward than being honest to our conscience - ensures, we live a peaceful life and die happily. And I personally believe, such people never do any bad to others. They always feel happy, when they see others prosper. Interestingly I also have seen, the name has something to do as well. May be because the destiny set that out this way ? We have few dans here as well. (
In my surroundings, I see many people who become happy to see others suffer. In stead of sharing happiness, they always talk about greed and shortcomings. I always wonder, how they are able to sleep in the night. May be they are able to manage it now - but hey, we can't cheat our conscience forever, isn't it ? After all, we all are going to reach the death gate - the ultimate truth. I am sure, life is going to ask us one last time there - have we done things right ?
There is a saying in my place - when we die, only six pieces of wood are needed to carry the body - the last bed is made out of six pieces (you can see in the photo). And then everything is burnt to ashes. Then why so much of falsehood and pretension while living ? Can you have thoughts like Dan and write a letter like this from your death gate ? I am very sure, only one who is very truthful to his conscience can do this.
Note - Dan's email is edited with bare replacements from its original. The photograph is from one of my friend's last journey.