The other day I received a piece of obituary from LINE, informing me of the death of a former colleague, Mr. Wu, who had passed away due to sudden sepsis. 

We were home staff of the company we were with during late 90, at different units in NYC.  In early 1999, my tenure there was over and I had to be transferred back to head office.  That was no problem to me except one: my son was a 12th grader and there were several months before his graduation from high school.  More important was, he was also several months shy of 18 years old, who, according to the law I heard, is not allowed to live in a single house alone.  Therefore, I invited Wu to move to my house, a better place than he was living at then, and to be a caring companion to my son. 

Then my son went to college, and Wu still lived in my house until he was transferred back to head office a couple of years later.  In between, his expecting wife came to NYC and gave birth to a boy, his second son.  His wife then passed her confinement after childbirth at my house.  What a beautiful thing to remember!

Someday in late 00, he suffered from a stroke which severely damaged his mobility and his cognition ability.  So, he was forced to apply early retirement.  Since then, he could do nothing but sitting in front computer or iPad at home, surfing anything he could find online.  He then frequently emailed some reposts originally from Falun Gong in US to his friends, including me.  Those voluminous reposts contained unproven stuff with vitriol and abuse against Mainland China.  I hated to read those stuff, besides my outdated computer could not afford that kind of volume, so I asked him to remove my name from the list of recipients.  Well, that was an unpleasant request that you could imagine, and I was filled with remorse for creating this discord between us, especially in these days of Autumn rains.  

Wu suffered a lot of pain in this world; may him RIP in Heaven!