He would have regretted leaving this world because he would never again get to eat breakfast with the ones he loved, and to hang about lazily on a Sunday afternoon, listening to traffic meander by on the street below. He would miss his fellow students, and the friends that he held dear. He would probably have told you a story about encountering a ghost in a Kentucky cave, or sleeping in a broken down vehicle on a cross-country trip. He might have told you how he took pride in making Jen, his girlfriend, laugh. Given the chance, he probably would have given you a full discourse in Zen Buddhism, which he was extremely passionate about from an early age, and talked about at length with anyone who showed interest. He would have told you not to miss him too greatly, because sadness is simply a manifestation of thoughts and attachment. He would have told you about his father, who taught him to take the entire world and all of its problems with a grain of salt, for they will pass and be forgotten long before they are solved. He would have talked of his mother, who showed him how to love, how to stand up for himself and show respect and humility. He could turn any situation into an opportunity for contentment and warmth. That warmth was contagious, and that's why people were comfortable around him. He had little interest in leaving a legacy, which he saw as man's desire to escape death, which as we see today, is fruitless. This early poem of his would have been his preferred farewell:

This body was born once,

ate 80,000 pounds of food,

swam 340 miles in the sea,

walked 23,239 miles on land,

climbed 45 mountains,

made love 3,635 times,

wrote 930 pages,

played 1,582 songs,

meditated for 1,865 hours.

This body lived long and with vigor, but was prepared for death's quick release, which it greeted with a pining sadness, then relaxed.

M. D. S .