"An infectious laugh..."

has to be a good thing to be remembered by.
I went into the local library to pick up a book yesterday. It was supposed to be a quick visit.
I stayed a little longer. One of the staff took me quietly to one side and told me, 
    "We have something to tell you. J....has died."
The last time I had spoken to J... was about three months ago. She had admitted then that she was "not feeling too good" and then laughed and said, "But I'll be okay."
Since then the local library has  been in chaos because of the building works going on. A portion of it has been shifted to another location. The staff, who always work between two libraries, are working different shifts and I don't always see all of them. 
I was aware I hadn't seen J... but assumed she was working at the other library and I had just missed her.
No. She was very ill. She had not even told her work colleagues how ill until the last. Then one assumed another - who assumed yet another - had also told me how ill she was.
It mattered because I remember the day she started at the library. I was the first borrower she met - something she sometimes reminded me about. She was nervous - who wouldn't be starting work for the first time? She was also excited because she had always wanted to work in a library.
I think - indeed hope - it met her expectations. Like everyone else putting returned books back on shelves was not her favourite occupation - "but you often find something you want to read". She was not a fully qualified librarian and always said "I don't know much about that" but she did learn a lot over the years. She had no hesitation in asking me something if I happened to be around or introducing another reader with the words, "Cat knows all about that. She can show you."  I would tell her I didn't know "all" about anything and she would laugh and say, "Well you know more than I do about that." 
Perhaps I did but she was always ready to learn more. She would alert me to new books coming in and ask me to look at others. If she was choosing books for the housebound service she would sometimes say, "Do you know....? What do you think they would like?"
It was all typical of her interest in her work and the pleasure she found in the pleasure of others being able to read.
J.... was always grossly overweight. It was a genetic condition. It made treating the cancer from which she died that much more difficult. Her cheerful outlook on life also hid her condition from the rest of us for too long.
Her work colleagues will genuinely miss her - and so will I.