He Was A Friend Of Mine

He was a strange bird. Not your average student or friend. He never talked much and often you would find him folding up into himself.

To say he was an intovert would almost be an understatement. I always thought of him being selective with the company he chose.

Ask him his favorite thing to do, he would say reading and playing chess. He found in chess, he was like a pawn, small in size and a different shape from the other pieces. He called pawns, sacrificial lambs willingly going to slaughter to save their King, to protect their Queen, and defend honor with their last breath.

Those words alone told me the kind of person he was.

When it came to reading, he almost always talked about the supporting characters that gave the hero the ability to shine. He would say if it weren't for them, the hero would be just another person in an endless stream of words on a page.

As strange as he was to most people, once you were able to ger close enough to know him, you would find he has a big heart he would unfold and take in the pain of one he thought so dearly of.

And here I stand, nearly sixty years later, looking at his headstone, slowly shaking my head and as I walk, I whisper these words, "Ori Gami, the world never knew you the way you wanted them to, but I did."