Tonight's 1 a.m. Activity: Remembrance

The world is a little worse place to be. My co-worker Darren Phillips died just before noon at Lakeland in St. Joseph today. While he was officially a sports reporter, he spent most of his nights in the office with us on the copy desk. Since The Herald-Palladium became a pagination hub for six of the company's papers, he's really been more of a page designer than a sports reporter. Some people might complain that they were forced to do something they didn't want to do, but not Darren. Darren never complained -- not about his job, not about his life, not about the dimly-lit, windowless newsroom he had to work in five days a week. That's just not the kind of person he was. He always had something positive to say.

Every day when he arrived at work he'd throw you a smile and wave, say good morning and exclaim how happy he was to be there. He could be sick, tired or working on Christmas, it didn't matter. If you asked him how he was doing, he'd always say, "Better now that I'm at the H-dash-P." After a year and a half, I even started to believe him. No one is happier being at the H-P: The dust on the filing cabinets is an inch thick; most of the ceiling tiles are missing, bowing from water damage or covered in mold; and the carpet hasn't been vacuumed since the 1990s. But Darren didn't seem to notice. When his computer software crashed, he didn't cuss or kick his computer. He'd shout, "Oh no!" It became so commonplace and brought a smile to so many of our faces that the rest of us started doing it, too.

When he wasn't doing his job, he always had something funny to say or a witty comeback to share. He wore Christmas sweaters in July and embraced his baldness like no one I've ever seen. Several times a week, he could be heard making plans for the "1 a.m. activity." It could be anything from lion taming to riding the Ferris wheel in his trunk to shaving my head so I could be bald, too.

About two weeks ago, he caught viral pneumonia and was taken to the hospital. He also had a secondary bacterial infection and fluid in his chest. We thought he'd be out for awhile, but it was Darren, he'd bounce back. Earlier this week, his sickness had gotten so bad that they were going to fly him to the University of Michigan for treatment. Being a Michigan State grad, we joked he was going to have a good laugh when he learned "those Michigan men" fixed him up. Unfortunately, he was too unstable to be transferred, and by Wednesday we were told the end was near.

Even in his death, Darren thought of others, donating his organs to those in need. While I've only really known him for a year and a half, I felt he donated more than that to the rest of us. He taught us all how to be slow to anger, how to love our jobs and how to embrace whatever life throws our way. For that, Darren, we thank you. And we hope you're enjoying it up there with the Big Guy, because down here we sure could use another bald f.