Faith and Values: Loss of colleague, friend inspires more purpose to spread joy, kindness

Last winter, I went over the handlebars of my e-bike after hitting black ice on my way to work. Embarrassed and a little shocked, I got up, twisted my handlebars back around, and rode up the hill to my office.

There, I peeled off my coat to find the right sleeve drenched in blood. Under my helmet was a quickly growing goose egg.

Instinctively, I walked down the hall to a friend’s office. “I need a mom,” I blurted out.

Erin Cox jumped into action. She washed my wound. She bandaged it. She got ice for my forehead. All day long she checked on me: “Are you sure you don’t need to go to the doctor?”

Erin was inviting and caring in a way we should all strive to be. She lived her faith by loving others, embodying her devotion as a Latter-day Saint. In the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 4:15, the prophet Benjamin teaches believers “to love one another, and to serve one another.”

Erin did that better than most of us.

She died suddenly a few weeks ago, leaving a deafening void in our building.

I hadn’t been to a funeral since I gave the eulogy at my grandmother’s in 2017. Before that, it was for a high school friend when I was a teenager. I thought, like the others, Erin’s funeral would compound my sadness. And I did cry when her family carried her casket to the front of the church. But unexpectedly, I was also comforted and even inspired by the service.

Her colleagues showed up, her friends, her family, her ward. I sat in the back pew, and when I glanced behind me, the room was overflowing with others who had shown up, sitting in folding chairs.

The crowd at her funeral showed how many people she had loved and brought joy to.

With a mix of both laughter and tears, one of her sons shared stories of how she once ran a day care in her home, how she went crazy decorating for Christmas, her fear of bridges, her love of “glamping” – and to many of our surprise, her concealed carry license.

There’s so much we don’t know about the people we call friends.

I didn’t know any of those things about her, and I so wish I could talk with her about them now. I’m grateful, though, for the conversations we did have – almost daily – about our dogs and our families. This summer I brought my puppy to campus just to meet Erin.

Now her office door is closed with the lights off. A sign hangs on the door that reads, “out of office.” At first I avoided it, but now I walk by it every day, still expecting to hear her laughing.

I find myself wondering how I can do my part in continuing her legacy. I think it’s by being kind to others and by being joyful. Joy is contagious. That’s what drew me to her office time and time again.

The Book of Mormon teaches that “the purpose of mortal life is for all people to have joy.” Erin fulfilled that purpose. I will try, but I know there will be days when I’ll stomp through the hallways, grumpy. On those days I’ll look at the succulent I adopted from her now-empty office and remember that even the smallest acts of care – a bandaged wound, a moment of laughter, a thriving plant passed from one friend to another – can bloom into something beautiful.

That’s how love works. That’s how Erin worked. And that’s how her light will keep shining, one small kindness at a time.

Tracy Simmons, a longtime religion reporter, is a Washington State University scholarly assistant professor and the editor of FāVS News, a website dedicated to covering faith, ethics and values in the Spokane region.