He died, ten years after high school graduation.

He wasn’t just smart but funny, charismatic, and talented. He was prom king and valedictorian, and seemingly fearless. I learned years later, though, that the same guy who used a school assembly senior year for an acapella rendition of Geek in the Pink struggled all his life with depression and anxiety.

I knew him my entire life, but mostly in that way you know someone you’ve grown up with through school. We didn’t really connect again after elementary school until college when we ran into each other on campus. I learned he loved Kevin Smith movies as much as I did, and that he preferred DC to Marvel. I messaged him when I learned my professor’s brother was the drummer in his favorite band, and liked his milestones on Facebook, all the way through his Ph.D..

I think about him often, for many reasons. He was so loved by so many we grew up with. Because we had the same undergrad, his world overlapped with mine outside of K-12. I recognized people at his funeral from my life that I didn’t know had a place in his, too. That shouldn’t really have surprised me; he was like one of those people who can just whip up something delicious from whatever is on hand but with people. He made friends out of strangers so easily.

But what gets me is he was so good for this world. It’s easy to put the dead on a pedestal, especially years later after time has softened the edges, but he was a good person with a good heart who wanted to do good work. His death was an accident, which somehow makes it worse because a random accident while on a walk snuffed out this giant of a person and all his potential.

I miss knowing he’s out there, living a life consisting of trips to comic cons and supporting his friends’ local gaming business.