I didn’t know you for long.
A day after your death I backtracked how long we actually had known each other for.
I counted two months, an insight which lead to instant disappointment because in this world we put the length of any relationship on a piedestal.
I pushed that annoying inkling of disappointment away because in my world I treasure the impact of a relationship, how we affected each other during our time together. I now know that two months can be as wholly as 5 years.
We were becoming friends but more than that too because you were the first person I dared to think of as a possible mentor.
Your manners toward others inspired me. You made everyone feel seen at the same time as you jokingly teased them about a minor detail in their own manners.
I witnessed how you brought those manners to the surface and I saw in the persons face that no one, except himself, had ever noticed it, which in return left him smiling.
You saw and made seen, in the most loving, joyful of ways.
As autumn came marching in and the first rain fell heavily, we stood waiting to go out for lunch. I said something in the likes of “Into the darkness we go…” you looked at me with a half-smile and a shrug, saying “I know many people don’t like this weather but I’ve always seen it as something beautiful because it’s as if the world becomes clean.”
I never told you how much I appreciated you, I never had the chance to ask you if you could be my mentor, even after I would’ve quit. Because we thought we had time, you said it constantly “focus on this now, we’ll dive into that later” but Gustaf, you know, later never came.
Thank you for teaching me, in the most horrid of ways, never to hold back on declarations of love.
Rain was pouring down when I walked home from the subway tonight. Out of nowhere I was struck by your words, as if the rain itself whispered in your voice “The world gets clean”.
So from here on now my friend, I promise that I’ll forever keep that glittery view of the world in mind whenever it cleans, I mean rains.
Josie Mattsson 