He had brain cancer. Took some time off for surgery and recovery, but never really recovered. He really REALLY wanted to work, but as a result of the surgery had issues with language skills and was inconsistent - there were just times he was moving slow and couldn't come in.

We had him at part-time with part disability for a while. And at one point we mostly had him doing odd jobs around the office that didn't require his cognitive functioning to be all there all the time.

But as a small non-profit with little wiggle room to pay employees long-term who can't do the job (so we had to hire someone else who could) we finally made the decision that he had to be let go.

I say it's one of my greatest regrets, but it's more a regret that we were in that position. I don't see that we had any other option. We remained good friends until he passed away about 18 months later. Honestly - if it had been entirely my call and we'd known how much time he had left, maybe we would've found a way to keep him coming in for a few hours a week. At the same time, I also know his wife was somewhat relieved. She couldn't convince him it was time to go to full-time disability and she knew he struggled getting to work most days.

Just a bad deal all the way around.