Little Things

Thank you for telling me the story of your life today, Dens. Well, at least part of it. I wouldn’t have imagined that anything, save perhaps sheer fury, would ever make me cry in the middle of the street. I think your story has changed me forever.

I’m certain that I couldn’t have gone through what you went through. I understand now where all that goodness in you comes from.

You reduce my existence to nothing. I look back at the way I’ve been living the past quarter of a century and realize there’s nothing there that I can be truly proud of. I just think about the lives you’ve touched and the profound ways in which you touched them, and know that there’s so much I have to do before I can even be half the person that you are.

I’ve always said you’re the nicest guy I know. I know now that you must be one of the greatest persons I’ll ever meet — great not in the grand but mundane way that most people only notice, but in the simple, quiet, more meaningful way.

You might say that it is a little too early for me to concede, but I tend to think that I will never be truly happy. I know I will always find happiness in other people’s happiness, but I’m pretty much convinced that I’ll never find my own. And that saddens me deeply when I think of it, especially because I think that I deserve some happiness, too, in spite of myself. I realize now that if I deserve happiness at all, you deserve much, much more.

I wish that you will find happiness, Dens. I know you will. You must. Because when you find true happiness, I’d have known that there’s some justice in this world.

I am very, very proud of you, Dens. I am very, very proud, more than ever, to be your friend.