Goodbye Old Friend

One thing that truly sucks about our life is that we have so many people you feel close to and we know that we will likely never see them again. Fernando was in the army in Ecuador and he hadbeen stationed places where he has not had internet access for a year, but I still felt especially close to him even though we did not talk often. I always thought I would see him again.

Last January I had been thinking about Fernando so I sent him this picture from a night we were out to dinner. He wrote back and with his usual good humor and imploring me to come visit. I really planned on it. Three weeks later, it is too late.

I was just on the phone with a friend of mine, Guillo, and he told me the bad news. Fernando's unit had been transporting captured munitions from a FARC camp. FARC is a terrorist group that is based in Colombia that has a few bases in Ecuador. Either way, they were transporting munitions and there was an accident and he died.

I feel terrible .