mortality

Early this morning, I got a call from the registrar at my old high school. I went to a private high school, with an Asian population of less than 10% (at the time), and she used to serve as kind of an unofficial mentor for a lot of the Asian kids there. We called her the "Asian fairy godmother".

She told me that my high school ex had been found dead late last week, at UC Davis, where he was a graduate student in biophysics. There was no obvious cause of death, and an autopsy didn't result in any additional findings.

I hadn't really had contact with him for a couple of years, and I hadn't seen him in person in over six years, but it was still something of a shock. We were good friends for about a year and a half, dated for about three or four months, and parted amicably when we both went off to college. He was always a bit manic, but according to a mutual friend, he seemed happy and healthy as of a few months ago.

Anyway, I sent flowers to his family, which was a little surreal as well. I never thought I'd be buying a sympathy bouquet for the parents of a 26-year-old.