I noticed her from my balcony within days of moving in to my highrise, walking 2 little white dogs around block. She was always alone, always with a look of deep sadness on her face.

I must have ran into her at least twenty times during my year-and-a- quarter of living here, on elevator or on grounds of our building, each time trying to engage her in conversation - about weather, her dogs, anything to try to get her to at least, smile.

Never once did she smile though, or answer me with more than a couple of words. After each attempt, I just left her with my smile, and let it go.

Like you I'm sure, I have been face-to-face with people that have been deeply depressed. In my heart of hearts, I knew she was. Without knowing anything about her, I could only surmise that whatever had happened in her life to cause this disfigurement was reason. Perhaps shallow of me, but I couldn't even imagine looking in mirror each day to see such hideous physical devastation.

On Monday of last week, I proceeded out main doors of my building to go on my morning walk. I noticed 2 police cars and a forensics van in visitors parking lot. My mind began to wonder as to what this could possibly have been about. I concluded that perhaps an elderly tenant had passed away, and promptly forgot about it.

On following Friday, I discovered truth. I saw one of building managers who had just returned from a funeral - funeral of this young woman.

She had done what was unperceivable to me - she took her own life.

I was shaken. I learned in that conversation that her scars were result of surgery, for cancer. I became deeply disturbed.

I looked out my second story office window and knew exactly why. I could hear sounds throughout morning. This crew of 4 men and 3 bucket trucks stringing power lines along new poles they had been planting in front and back yards of my neighborhood past few weeks.

Often during this time, I would be working on my laptop on front porch and watched this professional teamwork in total synchronicity, moving from pole to pole in planned sequence. First it was connecting phone lines. Then, cable. Today, and finally, from back alley, electricity.

What was of extreme interest to me was foreman of this well- oiled machine. A big, burly middle-aged fellow whose sheer stature and hard look would intimidate most. But, he always uttered his commands, some very loudly as his underlings were often thirty-five feet in air, with warm authority.

You could tell his crew really liked and had great respect for him. Although this was far from your typical 'lean on your shovel' squad, they still joked while working at a well-managed pace. Bossman, whose job description no doubt mandated a no hands-on, no physical labor approach, was always doing something to speed things along, be it picking up refuse or spooling wire. In fact, while they were in process of connecting my power, guess who was pruning overgrown pine tree branches in my backyard to make it easier for his boys?

It was at this point that I brought my high-wire friends a sampling of my special blend coffee (I prepared this, just prior to 'lights out'), reserved usually for special company. Setting a tray down on patio table, I engaged 'Jim' in conversation and remarked how much I enjoyed watching them work and how much it reminded me of my great production team when I owned a drycleaning business. Another well-oiled, and fun to run machine.

His sun-hardened face beamed with pride as he began telling me about what a great group of guys he had and how they were most productive crew in this large company.

No wonder!