REMEMBERING

He was not the type of person to ignore emails, especially ones asking for advice. It had been a while since we exchanged words so when he did not write back, I should have wondered why. Instead, I was too preoccupied with the move and other issues to realise the reason for his lack of response.

For some reason I decided to go on Facebook before 3 this morning to see if there was a message to which I needed to reply. I haven't been active on there in a while. A long while apparently.

As I scrolled through my messages, I clicked on a friend's avatar which led me to his page. I wanted to see what he was up to as I wrote to him last Friday asking for career advice and also a month ago just to see how he was doing. When I landed on his page, I saw the word 'Remembering' under his avatar.

Remembering? It had to be a mistake, I thought.

I then typed his name in the search engine on my iPhone where I found reports of someone by his name having been shot and killed in Oakland back in November. It had to be someone else by the same name. But it wasn't.

I was in Northern Ireland at the time but remember emailing him a month prior to that and having a short conversation on the phone with him. He asked me to send him my CV so he could help me in my job search. I said I would, but somehow never got around to it.

I am still in shock and sorry for not keeping in touch with Jonathon. He helped me years ago when I lived in San Francisco. We worked at the same company and I remember his encouragement and dedication to helping me study for the CISSP. I attribute my passing the difficult exam to him.

He was amazingly talented and incredibly smart. He touched many people's lives with his kindness. I remember him calm and collected even under the most stressful of situations. When I browsed through his photos online, I could see his passion for life. He lived life to the fullest until that morning last November when a random 24-year old felon tried to rob him but ended up robbing him of his life instead. One random moment in time.

The moments we have are far fewer than we realise but somehow we believe we have all the time in the world to do something or say something. Until it is too late. We will wait until tomorrow, we reason. But there is no guarantee of tomorrow. All we really have is today.