I don’t mean to be Debbie Downer but this week we sustained a loss that has us all reeling. Jason Sheftell, the New York Daily News real estate reporter, died. He was a young 46, in seemingly robust health. And, for those of us who had a chance to know him and work with him, he was high-octane, generous, and passionate about his work and life. I thought he looked like Adam Sandler. And, when we first met, it’s as if he had stepped out from a Hollywood film set in the role of “The Newspaper’s Beat Reporter” – wearing a trench coat (it wasn’t even raining) and carrying his de rigueur spiral notebook.

I cannot claim to have been close friends with Jason. We were, though, definitely good work friends, who would see one another at events where we could get a 411 download on one another, swap emails as I tried to persuade him of the merits of reporting on a client, or, if successful hustle to service him with all of the interviews, materials and photographs he needed. He always responded to and acknowledged anything I sent, including mass blasts. Not a lot of press will take the time to do that.

It’s incomprehensible why his life has ended. Hard to accept that we will never see or speak to him again. There’s a cruelty to deleting him from our database as if he never existed or even trying to find out who it is that the Daily News will assign to replace him. Can he really be replaced? Will he be forgotten?

For all of the hundreds of work friends and acquaintances who pass through our lives – clients, vendors, journalists and media folks – there are some who have a lasting impact. Some with giant personalities. Some you’re drawn to and form a bond beyond the workplace. And, yes, some who will fade from memory.

Inexplicably, Jason is one I know I will remember.  Thank you, Jason, for giving us the opportunity to know you and learn that beneath the exterior of the hardened news reporter beat the heart of an endearingly sweet soul.

One of our favorite Jason “placements”