I have a business helping foreign medical professionals with advancing their communicative and presentation skills in English. I help them achieve their dreams and career goals. I typically work with doctors, surgeons, and medical students.

I was working with this one client for a while and he was fiercely determined to achieve his dream of bringing his family to America and work as a doctor. He had a wife and a young baby and he would do anything for them.

He didn't show up to our session which was extremely odd because he is so punctual with his time. I sent him some messages saying I hope everything is ok and we can always reschedule.

His father emailed me and told me he died in a car accident.

On the surface, one may think his death wouldn't affect me very much because he was "just a client" but it has deeply affected me for a number of reasons:

1) Due to my line of business, I genuinely got to know him. I knew all about his hopes, dreams, fears, political issues in his country, I knew about his wife, baby, a bird that he loved dearly, etc..and he knew about my life as well.

2) This is the first death I've experienced with someone who was a part of my regular daily life. I didn't speak to him everyday, but I communicated with him regularly, I was used to seeing him on my schedule, I was planning on helping him with interviewing skills in the near future, I was supposed to see him this week, I was really looking forward to telling him about something funny that had happened in our next session, etc. So the fact that he's so abruptly gone is very hard.

3) I am extremely passionate about helping people get to where they're trying to go. He was so, so determined to bring his family here and get a job as a doctor. I was invested in helping him achieve his dream. So the fact that this young, 30 year old man suddenly died in a car accident and he will never achieve his dream is gut wrenching and completely devastating for me.

4) On a deeper level, I'm angry that his life is over and it was taken away in a split second. No warning, no heads up...nothing. So I'm like, what's the point of all of this if it can be taken away in a second? I just don't think it's fair. Also, it's hard to accept that it can happen to any one of us because none of know what lies in our future.

So yeah, I know he was "just a client", but his death has deeply affected me more than some family members. I know I'll be ok eventually, but I'm struggling with my grief and I needed to take some time off of work.

Thanks for reading this.