Dear Sergio,
Your leaving came as a shock to me, a complete shock. i was in front of my computer, just using facebook like any other office worker does, when i saw something that was roughly translated as words for loss, from your friends on your facebook page. that one thing was enough to get me thinking, and i looked closer - and i saw the news, that it was real.
it struck me hard. i don't know why. i only saw you a year ago, for five months, when we were living together side by side in Poulteney Court, that wonderful domestic quiet country-style dorm surrounded by country houses. we overlooked the garden, it was small, but enough for a decent view.
i remember us walking around Bath on a whim. i remember walking all the way to the canal, hesitating to go down to the river because that would mean that we would have to walk back up again. i remember seeing a commotion, that a rugby match was going on. i remember stopping by the local market doorway and promising to see a jazz tribute to Billie Holiday advertised by a flyer. i remember meeting you in the dorm corridors, with its blue cheap carpet, under flourescent lights, with your genuine smile on your face that was kind of attractive in a harmless way. i remember wondering if you could hear me through the thin wall that separated our rooms. i remember how you taught me about mexico, that it wasn't such a dangerous place, and i remember you taught me about making food, and bringing out the best guacamole i ever tasted, maybe it tasted that way because i knew it was homemade by you. i remember seeing you in the kitchen sometimes, because you always ate at strange hours to me. i remember you scoffing at my breakfast burritos and showing me how to wrap one up nicely, which i did every day after that.
i remember you teaching me that it was possible to walk up to the University at the top of the hill, and that opened my mind up to doing it every once in a while too. i don't remember if we ever walked up together, but i think we did, and that comforts me. i hope you enjoyed Bath as much as I did. i don't know where you are now.
i know that you wanted to be a teacher of language, to teach English back in Mexico. you had that going for you, safe in your corner of the world, and content, which i respected, and envied a little.
i don't know why i'm writing this down, i think it's a way of saying goodbye. i remember so much about you, even when i thought i wasn't that close to you. you seemed a little lonely, but i thought you would be alright in life. i don't know how you died, i want to know, but then again i don't know if its relevant, because i don't feel it's relevant at all in the grander scheme of things. i just know that you've moved on.
my heart aches whenever i think of you. it's easy to remove you from my mind, but i feel that it's disrespecting you if i do, because you were my friend in a foreign country, and friends are hard to come by in those situations. you were a friend, a good one, one that i could come back to every day knowing that you would be there.
i had hoped that our goodbye on the last day, when i was pulling along my luggage bag, wasn't the last one, but i guess it was. that hurts to say. i hope you are serene and at peace, in the vast embrace of nonexistence.
sending lots of love to wherever you are,
timo
