We lost another angel. Rahul Asuncion Kakar passed on to the next world, entirely too soon.

If you knew him: this piece is for you.
If you didn’t know him: this piece is also for you. Please read on.

We had countless stories together, just like everyone in his life. You already know one of them. He introduced me to Queensryche, converting me into a metalhead, for a time. He taught me that pancakes don’t actually come out of a box. He taught me to wear boots (okay, shoes, in general; but boots in particular). He housed me when I was in need, and he made sure that I, naive country mouse that I am, didn’t get taken in by too many city mice.

I can go on forever with the stories, but I don’t need to. You have your own stories of him*. But if you’ll allow, I have two particular stories that are important to me, and that I believe demonstrate the change he brought to this world.

Once he had two tickets to a Rush concert. I begged him to sell them to me (and he did), so I could take a particular girl to the show – she liked Rush, and I liked her; but what I didn’t know until I asked her to go to the show was that she didn’t, unfortunately, like me. Crestfallen at her refusal, I turned to the nearest person in the room at the time and took them with me to the show – completely forgetting whose tickets they were in the first place.

When I got back, I called him immediately (no cel phones then). He and his roommate took turns cussing me out until I could get in a word edgewise to say that I was sorry and that I had lost my head, and that I’d made a mistake, and so on.

He stopped his tirade dead in its tracks, and he simply said: “Oh, well, that’s okay then. Forget it.”

And he did.

I never heard about that incident again, not in thirty years. I’ve thought about it since then – to this day I can’t hear Rush without remembering my idiocy. But to Ra, it was over as soon as it happened. He taught me what forgiveness really was.

The second story is simpler: when I moved across the country, I was in severe culture shock and more than a little homesick, as well as just missing him in general. We called each other once a week – he even flew out to visit once – but those calls were always ended by us telling each other we loved each other.

This was not something that you’d hear, in that time and place, outside of a romantic relationship. But for him – and I know I wasn’t alone here – for him, it didn’t matter. If he loved you, he told you. And before you knew it, you told him, too.

Ra made the world better by being in it. And now he’s gone, and the world is a lesser place because of it.

So … let’s try something.

Let’s try to amplify what he brought to the world; not just by remembering him, but by following his example.

Forgive. Love. Take every chance you get. To everyone in your life, be the beautiful, brilliant soul that Ra was. “To us, and those like us,” he used to say at toasts. Let’s make that true.

If we can do that, then maybe we can use this devastating loss to spread the love and joy that was our brother, husband, father, and son. Nothing can ever replace him, but let’s keep him alive in the most enduring way that we can: by sharing his love with everyone, just as he did.

I love you all.

Good God do I miss him.

* Or, perhaps you didn’t know him, or not that well. In that case I’m sure you have such memories of someone else — and if not, go make some.