In Memory Of....

Before I re-post my tribute to my school-friend Johnny Lo, I should explain something.

Many of you will remember last week, I wrote an entry in honour of an old friend who had died suddenly. You may also remember that the post was, within a few hours, inexplicably removed.

That's because he was still alive.

When I went to visit him, his mother had made frequent references to the donation of his organs, and him being with Jesus now; it felt pointless, and frankly, insensitive to request confirmation: "So, he's really dead?"

I felt that it was best that his family broke the news rather than some guy the deceased hadn't seen in years. Thus, I didn't tell anybody. Later in the day, I looked at his Facebook profile to see what people were writing, and within hours, heartfelt tribute messages and RIP's appeared. "People know now, time to blog a tribute." I thought.

Imagine my shock when, hours later, I received word that Johnny was still alive. Critical, but alive. Hence the removal of the tribute post.

He hung tough for a little while longer, until a few days ago when he passed on quietly. So I'm putting the tribute back up. I've also added in a couple more stories that I recall from high school. Upon further reminiscing, he was also in my grade 12 physics class where we caused a bit of trouble.

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Last night I logged onto Facebook to receive a disturbing message. Someone unknown to me sent a message saying that a high school buddy of mine, Johnny Lo, had been in a serious accident and was in critical care. I had an early morning interview the next morning and work in the afternoon, so I decided that I should drop by and say hello. Even though I hadn't spoken to Johnny in over five years, I thought it'd be nice to offer my support in person and see him.

Imagine how stunned I was when I got there and was informed by his mother that his organs were being donated. I was completely blindsided. On my way to the hospital I had imagined us talking briefly, reminiscing, and possibly making plans to meet up sometime after he was released.

I first met Johnny when I was in grade 6. I was new to the school, and he arrived about a couple of months later. He was an extremely friendly guy, but was often teased by the punk kids for his relatively thick Chinese accent. Despite that, he didn't let it bother him much and maintained his friendly nature. And in time, he won those punk kids over with his talents. 1) Johnny was an amazing artist. When he got bored in class, he doodled, and I remember looking over one day in curiosity and saying "Whoa! Look at that!" If I remember correctly, he had drawn his left hand with exceptional detail. 2) He was an AWESOME goalie. In grades 6 and 7, our recess games consisted of ball hockey and red-ass. After a few games, the guys started to pick up on Johnny as an exceptional goalie, and he soon became one of the first to be picked when choosing teams.

And though he didn't exactly excel at red-ass, I guess you could say his humility and characteristic of fair play shone through in a humourous way: remember how the losers of red-ass would have to stand by the wall and get thrown at? Most losers would try and argue their way out of taking shots to the butt. But Johnny would simply offer up an "Awww shit!", walk to the wall and take his shots to the butt with no complaints. Afterwards, he'd laugh and would be ready for the next round. Seriously, nothing seemed to phase him and he was always enjoying himself.

During grade 7, the movie "Ricochet", starring Ice-T, received heavy TV promotion. Everyday for lunch, my drink was a can of iced tea. I guess Johnny saw that commercial far too often, because whenever I opened the can, he'd go "WHAAAT!!! ICED TEA! RICOCHET!!! WHAAAAATT!!"

I have a few good high school memories of him. Outside of school I did play ball-hockey with him occasionally on weekends, but for the most part, him and I went our separate ways after elementary school in terms of crowd and didn't hang out much anymore. We still said hello to one another in the halls and asked how things were going. We did have grade 10 gym together, in a class full of the bad kids. He actually got along with them really well, much better than I did. I don't know how it happened, but somehow they coined this phrase that caught on - for no apparent reason, they started proclaiming, in Mortal Kombat-announcer style, "Johnny Lo...WINS!!!". Eventually it caught on with everyone and the entire class would say it at random. He loved it.

Grade 12 physics was the last class I believe I had with him. Our teacher was Mr. Tung, renowned in school for having no control over his classes whatsoever. Johnny and I took full advantage of that. At the beginning of the semester, I thought I would take the class seriously, trying to give Mr. Tung a chance to prove the naysayers wrong. But no, his class was a total joke. Once we came to that realization, Johnny and I would sometimes do stupidness at the back of the class. I have this one memory where we reenacted the latest episode of RAW (WWE wrestling) and we traded punches and clotheslines for a good five minutes. Eventually I got fed up; I pointed to something behind him to make him look, and when he turned back around, I "knocked him out" with a foreign object: my class notes.

Just before I started graduate studies, I ran into him on the U of Toronto campus. We spoke for about five minutes, and said that we'd talk again sometime. Never did I imagine that the next time would be in this form.

Goodbye Johnny. When it's my time, I hope to see you again.