Death doesn't let you say goodbyes

Posted byjasonh52gmailcomPosted inUncategorized

We got news on Thursday that our Professor for my master’s program has passed away. Cancer. As messages were pouring in on Linked In, and then Facebook, and then the journals that I used to read/contribute to, I couldn’t help but think “It’s not what you say about yourself (in front of you or behind your back) when you are around. It’s what they say about you when you are dead.”

Here’s a photo I took of him in the fall of 2013. He was one of my first Canadian people. He accepted me to his lab under his supervision. He gave me my first part-time job. He was a teacher, a mentor, an employer, and at times, a friend. He was data-obsessed and meticulous, and he would correct my funky writing to the last character (for all 6 of my publications and my thesis). Maybe it was a German thing, but he was obsessed with measurements and trade-offs in product management. Whenever I said I worked in decision-making, another professor/student would lovingly laugh “Oh, Guenther”

And of course, as with careers and life, we lost touch after I graduated. I tried to keep in touch. In fact, I was the fifth author of one of the publications that his Ph.D. student wrote. That was just who he was, always thinking and helping his students. And that was just how life was, we lost touch with the people we know, chasing after a pre-defined path “society” has for us.

I’m at this weird point in my life as a middle-aged Buddhist that I am both restless and content. I want to “abandon all things” and I am ready to face whatever life is for me. Yet, I am obsessed with legacy and moving forward, and growing, and this pre-defined point of “success” in my life. Maybe, if they could please stop asking “Where do you want to grow this year?” or “What career stage do you want to be in 3-5 years?”, we could be so much more content about our careers.
I want to be remembered as a mentor, an advocate, a technologist who cares about equity and access to all, and a competent leader (at least career-wise) when I’m gone. But most of all, I want to be remembered as a loving person, a son, a brother, a husband, a lover, a gardener, a computer nerd, a hell of a jokester, and a Buddhist, when I’m gone.

“Death doesn’t discriminate. It takes. And it takes. And it takes. And we keep living anyway” – Hamilton

And maybe all of that won’t matter, because I will be gone. What people will remember me by is for them, not for me. For me, it’s the days that we are still living that count. And each good night we say, and each goodbye we say, make it a good one, because it might be our last.

“And we keep on loving anyway.”

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