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Sometimes we don't get to say goodbye, don't get the chance to show someone how we feel or express their worth in our lives. Unfortunately, that's how it was for those of us at the News & Record who knew and worked with Jeff Carlton, who died Thursday morning at the age of 36.

Only this time, we had an excuse: Jeff wouldn't let us.

For four years, Jeff had been dying, one cancer cell at a time. He underwent two brain surgeries and heaven knows how many rounds of radiation and chemotherapy. We certainly had our chances at goodbyes. Some of us even tried. But Jeff would have none of it.

Want to talk about "Seinfeld," Virginia football or the odds of making that full house on the river card? Pull up a chair.

But death and dying? Take it somewhere else.

So, right or wrong, we kept our thoughts to ourselves the way Jeff gracefully kept his illness to himself. If he was afraid of dying he never showed it at work. And we certainly saw enough of him at the end to catch any telling glimpse.

Then again, Jeff was a pretty good poker player who was careful not to display a tell.

Jeff also was a pretty good sportswriter, a calling where words such as "tough," "courageous" and "amazing" are thrown around like parade candy. In Jeff's case, we're not insulting the dictionary. He was determined not to make his personal struggle a public issue.

"Most days he came and did his job, even though he felt terrible," said John Newsom, a fellow reporter and former assistant sports editor at the News & Record. "Only when he rarely complained did you ever know how sick he really was."

Jeff covered several beats at the News & Record and most recently was the primary high school reporter. He worked until the week before his death.

Ed Hardin, the News & Record's sports columnist, was struck by how the cancer seemed to invigorate Jeff's resolve to work.

"I would tell him over and over to stay home, take care of yourself, do what your doctor tells you and let us worry about work," Hardin said. "Then I'd call the office to ask someone if he'd come home from the hospital or if he'd heard from his doctor or if anyone from the paper had talked to him, and I'd hear, 'Oh, he's right here. Want to talk to him?' "

Each of us, it seems, has a favorite Jeff story, the one we thought we could trade in for a new one in a few short weeks but will now have to cherish forever.

Like the night he threw a slice of pizza at a television screen after George Welsh, the former football coach at Jeff's beloved University of Virginia, called a play that backfired.

Or the week Jeff took his dog, Floyd, to Pinehurst where he was covering the U.S. Open, because, well, Floyd was just a puppy and he couldn't possibly be left behind.

Or the time he went down to the ACC tournament in Tampa, Fla., to catch a little basketball. Three weeks after brain surgery.

Jeff loved sports. The Redskins and Phillies were his passion. Yet he always viewed the games he covered -- and he covered some big ones -- in the proper perspective. Now, of course, those games seem even smaller.

"In a room full of athletes, coaches and others with media credentials, you always knew who was the most humble," said Rob Daniels, another News & Record sportswriter. "And it wasn't the power forward or the coach with the shoe contract or the talking head with the microphone. It was our guy with the 'Seinfeld' references."

For a guy who so enjoyed a show about nothing, Jeff was really something.

It's too soon to miss him. But we will.

Contact Robert Bell at 373-7055 or robert.bell@news-record.com