An open letter to my dying friend

I didn't know you well. I will not pretend to assume how you lived your life, your hopes and dreams. You were a boy in my school when I first met you and even as a boy you were tall and big and with a gentle heart, as much I could see. We took a trip together, us and two others and on that trip we laughed, played games, shared thoughts and in that I can say we shared a little of ourselves with each other. We talked sometimes after that and you were always friendly and kind, such things not going unnoticed in high school. We lost touch as it often happens. How small the world is as I discovered you were still a part of my life even if not in any immediate way or rather close to someone who is.
To me you were just a boy I knew, a boy who was now suddenly and tragically very very sick, a boy who was now dying. Nobody knows why this happened to you, as far as the world is concerned you were a perfectly healthy young man who unexpectedly fell ill and it seems like ever since, all of the odds have been against you. You lay in a coma in some unfriendly, white-lit room in the ICU, machines beeping and humming that you are still alive thanks to them. So many of your new unexpected neighbors are dead pale with their chests unnaturally inflating with a thud in their lifeless bodies. Unlike them, your body is muscular, manly, as ever holding the form of a gentle giant and you have kept your rosy color, your breathing steady almost as if you were sleeping, with everyone around you expecting you to wake up and rise, healthy as ever. If only you knew how you have effected the lives of everyone around you, if only you could see what difference you will have made in their lives even well after you are gone. Your devastating fate has lead me, me who only knew you so little, to think not of a life lost but of a life lived, however brief in might have been. Through my immense sadness, I imagine how special your existence was and what great things you would have achieved. Not because I knew you, not because you were only 23, the same age as me, but because people, all people, matter, because never mind how seemingly insignificant the ways in which you are wonderful and important, you are just that. No matter what path you chose in life, I trust you would have chosen to be true to yourself, kind to others and lived every moment and made each one count. You would have mattered as everyone does. In your untimely, inexplicable death, if it comes to that, I hope you will have inspired your family through their grief, to remember you as you were and for the amazing potential you never got to realize. I hope you will inspire your brother to live a full and happy life and to experience each fleeting moment, for life is so short. For your girlfriend, to feel blessed to have known and loved you and wishing she will love again and keep that love so close to her heart because it is the only thing that truly gives life its meaning. To everyone who knew you or anyone who will be reading this, never underestimate the importance of being healthy and loved and ultimately alive, because just like that, at any given moment it can all be taken away from you. Whether you are 10 or 23 or 60, know that while you are still breathing everything you do matters and everything is significant, so be happy, be kind, be extraordinary, don't let moments slip away from you, don't waste time on anything that doesn't add joy and wellness and delight to your being, value your relationships and learn from your mistakes as well as your achievements, take time to enjoy the beauty around you and add to it in any way you can. Finally, to my friend for I will always regard you as a friend, thank you. Thank you for teaching me how important life really is. I can only hope I will honor mine for the future as you surely would have yours.

My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family