Here today, gone tomorrow...

So I don't usually like to get into personal details on this blog, but this is an exception.

Today, my cousin would have turned 26. He passed away tragically in September last year... just 3 months ago. I've been to many funerals and seen many people leave this world, but never someone so close to me and someone so young... It really hit me incredibly hard. It sounds cliche, but I honestly still can't believe he's actually not around... I just feel like I haven't seen him in a long time. It made me seriously re-evaluate my life and my priorities.

I can't help feeling that in a way, he's lucky. He's gone to the ultimate place and left the trivial nonsense of this world behind, while we're all still here stumbling through a world that is just a temporary test for us before we get to the real deal.

He was a truly unique individual who had an awesome laid back attitude to life. He was always completely himself, never putting on an act for anyone, not caring what anyone thought about him. In his presence you couldn't help but feel calm and relaxed, because he was so chilled out all the time about everything. He appreciated the finer details of this world, appreciating the details of God's creation that others might take for granted. I feel like there was so much more to him that I didn't know yet. He was passionate about art, music and poetry and had been doing very well with exhibiting his art last year. These pics are from the Lost and Found exhibition at artSPACE:

This blog is about happiness and trying to look on the bright side no matter how bad things are around you, so on a more positive note, I'm so grateful to have known him and had him play a part in my life. I'm grateful for all the times we hung out together, even though I wish there had been more. I'm grateful that I got a photo with him the last time I saw him. I can't wrap my head around the fact that I'll never see him again, but I'm glad that when I think about him it makes me smile because of the good times we've had and the person that he was, the jokes he told that were so funny because of his unique way of telling them, his almost naive honesty and open-ness. I know he wouldn't want us dwelling on our loss down here.

May God grant his family strength and patience.

He mailed me about my blog just 20 days before he passed on, it was the first time he'd seen it. He liked the post about French words that have no English equivalent translation, and left me this word from the Saharan tribal language of Tamashek:
assouf: the solidarity/ nostalgia/ loneliness that you feel when you are in the desert.

He signed off that last email with:
Take it easy and stay cool...