Since I first saw him, he had always been around, and every time he gave me one of those smiles, he would spread a bit of warmth into my heart, a bit of friendliness. I guess, at the end of the day it must have been him who gave me the strength to go on somehow, just by being there.
Well, to make a long story short, he died only a year after he started working with us. It was a car accident and he didn`t have to suffer very long. I must have been his only friend in town, at least that was what I thought when I went to his funeral. The only person I met there was an old lady, maybe his mother. She told me that he had lost his family just the year before and after that he didn`t speak any more. He hadn`t said a single word. First I didn`t believe her. I just thought that he was a fairly quiet person; besides there was nothing much to say anyway. But suddenly I realized that I couldn`t recall ever having heard his voice at all. Only then did I realize it!.
He gave me so much and I knew so little about him. He had been my friend and now I had lost him without having had the chance to give anything back. He had been so strong that he was able to give whatever had happened.
I felt weak in those days. And guilty. But after that I started to care for the people around me. I think I started to live.