Remembering A Dear Friend

I'm not good at remembering birthdays and anniversaries, but Jan 18 will now be the day I will always remember, because it's the day when I shuffled dirt into my dear friend's grave in tears. I never kept track of his birthdays because like me,  he was the kind of people who didn't care much about his own birthdays. His birthdays always varied during the years when I was working with him because birthday cakes would just show up randomly on whatever day that was convenient for all of our colleagues to gather to sing him a birthday song.  But I will always remember yesterday because it was the day I sent him away. Yesterday was our last get-together since the great lunch we had about 2 years ago, which felt more like 2 days ago.

I never expected that among all my friends, the one whose company I enjoyed the most, the one whom I found to be the funniest, the most supportive and non-judgmental, the one whose assurance I sought when I doubted myself, was this serious looking man with this dramatically deep voice. I was never convinced that friendship could transcend age, race, sex and religion. But now I am a firm believer that people can literally be the best of friends regardless of age, race, sex and religion. I'm the same age as his kids and yet I consider him to be my best male friend and the only platonic male friend in my life.  He was always like a second father to me.  

I feel very sad for losing him.  It just feels weird that he seems to be so alive now that I'm reading his last emails to me.  For these two days, memories of him have been flashing across my mind, like movie trailers.  I just don't have one single bad memory of him.  There was just never a bad moment between him and I, not once.  I had fights with my own father, argument with my own mom. But with my dear friend, it was all comfort, fun and laughter, even when we were working on the most exhausting projects together.

My dear friend was always there for me when I needed help.  Among so many things he had done for me, I can't help but smile when I remember that once he got rid of the 20-pounds bag of rice and other junks that I had carried in my car's trunk for years. I didn't even feel embarrassed when he shockingly discovered that I was driving around with these junks for years.  It was because I just felt so comfortable around him.  This is what real friendship feels like.  I can't thank him enough for cultivating my professional capabilities. He was the one to see the talents in me when I didn't have the self-confidence to see them myself.  He was always being such a good listener. His sense of humor and his positivity lifted my spirits up when I felt down.  I miss him tremendously and I'm sorry that I hadn't visited him enough when I lost myself in climbing the corporate ladders elsewhere.  I felt there would always be time for me to take him and his wife out for lunch again. But I was wrong. 

Yes, I can almost hear his voice now, telling me, "Don't feel sorry! Life is too short for that! We are all short of time to do all the things we want to do. Besides, aren't we on diet?"  So, to honor my dear friend,  I will now regularly schedule a  get-together brunch with his wife and family, our common friends and our old colleagues who used to work with us.  I want to take his passing as an opportunity to build new relationships with the people he deeply cared, and to re-unite with our common friends he so cherished.