I have known him since elementary school. Initially, he was just another friend on the playground. Another chinese lad to play with. When the Kuwait invasion and Operation Desert Storm took place in 1991, I discovered that he too had a passion for military things. A deeper friendship was born. From that point forward, I found someone who shared an interest that no one else seemed to have, at least at the level that I had.
High school, our friendship grew deeper as I started going to the same church as he and his family. We went to our first religious retreat together in 1996 (both "sponsored" by our respective mothers). Both discovering a fire for our faith, that we weren't alone in this road. He didn't come with me to France for World Youth Day in 1997, which was too bad. I wondered what advice he would have given me when I met my 2nd girlfriend there (and if he would smirk whenever I would ditch him for her =P). But we continued to go to the same yearly retreat together almost every year for a good 6 or 7 years since then. We've met new friends along our journey, shared our pain and disappointment whenever our aspirations for female companionship never worked out at the time, but above all, just had a lovely time talking about things with a military twist/analogy or just quoting memorable quotes from Simpsons or whatever else we've watched together.
He was finally able to join me to World Youth Day in Rome in 2000. I will never forget that trip. We had a lot of fun there, sharing our 'military hierarchy' view on the Church, pledging our allegiance like soldiers to the end, him buying a 6 pack of beer and bringing it back to our cabin when I thought it was a bad idea, and just having a good time with everyone there. That was a good trip.
Even funnier is how our lives almost ran in parallel to one another or we both reached certain milestones with strange coincidence. We ended up moving to the same neighborhood in our OAC year, then when I first got my job at Telus, we both worked similar jobs with similar 12 hour shifts, and how we both finally moved out of those jobs to something more stable one after another. The only thing that was different perhaps was how our love lives alternated. I dated, he didn't... then at last he dated, and I didn't. All these coincidences and events just made us wonder if somehow, somewhere, our lives were tied together in some strange fate. We certainly found it humourous.
While I will always cherish the memories that I have of him (as I'm sure all of you who knew him would), a part of me can't help but feel torn knowing that the future will never be the same without him... that all the special moments that both he and I would experience that we could share will never be known. He had big plans this month that I hoped to witness, whether to congratulate him or poke fun and drink with him should he not succeed. I would expect no less from him if it was me in his place. Now I can only wonder... just like when my sister left us last year. I could only imagine how things would be like if she was still around.
Knowing that his sacrifice through organ donation has allowed the salvation of 15 other people puts me more at ease. Now I will continue living once again reminded of the fact that there's little time to waste. Whatever we desire doing, whatever we hope to achieve in this world, do it now. There will never be a better time. I just wish I did not have to see the face of death so many times to remember that...
So long Johnny boy... Every airshow I see, every spectacular aircraft or other vehicle I watch go by, every museum I visit, I will always think of you because you would probably be the only one who would go with me. I can only think of the words they put on the tombstone of British WW1 Flying Ace James McCudden:
on to the promised land of eternal life."
Johnny Lo
May 4, 1979 - July 7, 2007
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