We were childhood friends, he younger than I but always the first to do everything. Strong in virtue and in promise with just slept on dark blond curls. He was always compassionate, respectful and completely reckless yet completely responsible at the same time.
Never guessed at anything – he always seemed to know just his way, his path to go.
I remember him joking with his mother while finishing off his parent's basement just before he went off to college. He was handy rugged yet gentle and intellectually deep. He knew how to sum up everything in a word or at its great length a sentence.
He taught me to drive a stick, put me on the back of his motorcycle and brought me to my first drive in movie. He told me in the light of the low hung full moon that I was beautiful when I felt the most awkward. He taught me how to take chances and not to find failure in anything that you’d wished had gone differently.
We played; we drove all of over the Northeast to our families’ chagrin while never planning nor worrying about what life will bring, we just lived everyday and chose our next experiences like picking produce from the fruit market.
The night of the day that he found out he was accepted to the Law School of his choice he had dinner with his parents to tell them that he’d changed his plans of Medical School to Law School.
After dinner he went out with friends to celebrate and when he went to bed that night we lost our just slept on dark blond boy.
I was in a different country when he died and even now that more than ten years past I still have to think about it to realize that he is really gone and not just off gallivanting somewhere. He is whom I think of when I experience the happiest or the most devastating of times. It is the memory of his pep talks, laughter and smile that sneak up on me when I least suspect them.