Remembering someone...

I changed the job. I joined this company. Probem with me was to find friends in this place. Overall company was large, but my posting was at the smaller facility.
This person was very cheerful. It didnt take us long to be good friends. For that matter, he was such a person who was a friend of most of us. He was skinny but tall. He was dark but always carrying a smile on his face.
He was a good driver, but never had a licence. Later he told me the reasons for not having it. He hated paying bribes to policeman/RTO officers. It took him three chances to get a motorbike licence and first two times, his licence was rejected by quoting some silly reasons but the main reason was his refusal to bribe the RTO officers...
But then he got unwell. Severe backache. He was hospitalized for a month or so. When I went to see him, he had lost weight tremendously.
Later on, he told me that he had got cancer and then treatment started. In my view cancer is the deadliest and craziest disease. It doesnt kill you immediately. It kills you slowly. You can see yourself dying. Not only that. It is very expensive too. It will eat all your finances in the hope of saving the life of your loved ones. I am not saying the treatment doesnt work. It does. But many a times it doesnt.
So when he told me about his case, I immediately called up my sister, who is a doctor, asking her opinion on his case. She told me that it would be very difficult for him to survive more than few months with the disease reaching such a stage. But I didnt believe her. Because for me he was not the guy who can die so early. He was full of life. But I was wrong. She turned out to be right. After couple of weeks, I started seeing degradation in his health when I used to visit him. I dont know how could I have helped him and made him feel better.
But I feel he fought and lived his life to fullest till the time he could. He took a car from his brother and started driving to office. He was having crushes and used to discuss with us. He still used to enjoy moments/small pleasures which we forget to enjoy when we know everything is fine with us.
Just a few incidents I would quote. Initially I had a kind of promised him to watch a movie with him on some weekend. but somehow it didnt materialize.
Then one day while he was not well. He was coming to office. He was having crush on this girl. He came by company bus in which she also used to travel. but that day she didnt come :). So he was telling us about it with a big smile.
In his last few days, his voice was gone. He was whispering. In my last meeting, I went alongwith another colleague with me. We both were very sad after seeing him in pain. Then just few days later, he sent an SMS to all of us asking not to disturb him and let him be at peace.
After few days later, I recieved a call very early morning from his number. I was surprised, but it was not his voice. It was from his brother. He told me that he has expired and I was shocked even when I was knowing, its about to come.
I learned a lot from him. He had definitely influenced me to enjoy my life to fullest as it is too short.
I learned another thing. We normally dont value others in their presence. But once he/she is gone then we start realising their importance. We also dont tell them if we like them and once they are gone, then you dont get that chance again. Somehow this world values a person more after his death as after death people look only at positives of that person NOT negatives. Why cant we do that while the person is alive.