Recently, my childhood friend left this earth.

We met at school when we were just kids, we enjoyed creating all sorts of things: stories, drawings, animations, videos, whatever we could.

There wasn’t an end-game to our creations, in fact, sometimes they’d only be shared between ourselves or our small friend group.

We started to grow up at some point, but our passion for creating didn’t die just yet.

We'd often point to the other kids and say “We’ll never become like them!” referring to the fact that other kids didn’t seem to have such a passion for creativity and exploration.

We used to promise we wouldn’t become like the grownup kids: dull and boring.

Then, time went on, I ended up going to another school, we stayed in touch. What happened between the time that I left that school and the time he left this earth is a story for another day.

Now as adults, we saw each other one last time, and I felt exactly the same way that I used to when we were kids, I was happy.

I took his last picture, we were smiling.

I didn’t know it’d be the last time that I’d see him alive.

In one of our last chats, he asked me if I still "had it in me", referring to our passion for creativity, and the promise we’ve made.

I knew something was wrong, and still, I couldn’t do enough to stop him.

In a lot of ways we were opposites, in just a few we were similar. And yet, I found comfort in knowing that there was a person who felt as “misunderstood” as me when we were growing up.

When we were kids, I made a short animation and showed it to him during recess. I’ll never forget how his reaction made me feel.

It was just a silly animation, and I wasn’t expecting anything from showing it but he made sure to let me know how much he liked it.

I was able to find that same animation years later.

Now as adults, I’m glad that I was able to show him that silly animation one last time.