Paint the skies.

Time marches on. For everyone. It's cruel, cold and merciless. Each and every one of us heard that a THOUSAND times. 
The clock is ticking. You newer know when it's going to stop for you... Me... Them, him or her. 
Today a clock stopped ticking. That clock belonged to my childhood friend.
The person that thought me the most about drawing and made me love it. 
My drawing idol.
And life once again showed it's cruelly ironic side.
My roommate asked me to draw something for her today. 
I did, and I colored it. 
I was so proud of it.
When I finished it.
I got the news. 
And then I realized. 
Almost everything I learned I learned it from him. 
And the colored pencils that I used. 
Belonged to him.

...

We took our separate ways a long time ago. For no reason, we didn't fight, life just goes on, we grow up.
In the last few years we were just on ''Hi.''. 
Old memories, beautiful, funny, unspoiled moments from our childhood locked and tucked away, like chocolate you take every now and then to lift up your spirits, these memories were there to be told and remembered again and elicit a smile on my face.
At least for me it was so.
I know nothing about his last years of life.
Nothing.
And I can't believe that a person that you haven't spoken with for a decade can leave such a burning hole in your chest when it's gone. 
A month or so ago I caught myself thinking on the meaning of life.
''I wonder... Will I eventually, in the end, on my dying breath shed a tear because I didn't leave a trace in history? Is that the true meaning of life? To be remembered? 
Who am I then?
Who are all of those that took in the abyss everything they did? Everything they were?'' 
In the most horrible way. I got my answer. 
The darkness that embraced me, suffocating me, whispered me the answer. I ripped it apart and grabbed a ray of light to which I'm clinging so hard, to keep me from drowning in that pit of sadness and despair. 
As I mentioned before I know nothing about his accomplishments and achievements. 
But I'm pretty sure that I won't be wrong when I say he was a simple man. A common, simple citizen like every other, not a ''celebrity'' as today's society would define. A common citizen melting and blending in the everyday grayness where we're all the same and yet... So different on the inside. 
Yet.
That ordinary man was on my mind each time I took a pencil in my hand, and especially when someone would compliment my drawing skills. 
That mediocre man was secretly my drawing idol. 
He newer knew that. 
Who knows if he had the same fear about not leaving a mark in history.
I hope he will be acquainted with what he meat to me. I don't know what to think or what to hope for, comes after death, but I do hope now that at the end we get to know the good things people will remember us for. Things that we'd never dream about probably.
Now I understand what does ''leaving a trace'' mean. For me at least.
If anyone apart from the closest ones to me, will eventually remember something I though them, I showed them, I told them, an act of kindness of mine or anything at all, anything they will tell and remember with a smile on their face I'll be at peace.
Maybe we weren't born to save the world. But we can save an individual, one by one with the simplest acts that we're so often unaware of. And who knows maybe one of them will save the world. 
When they say the meaning of life is ''to be remembered'', I believe I misinterpreted it this whole time.
It doesn't need to be on a global scale. We can live on in every person we ever touched in a way. Maybe we changed their lives with an act of kindness without knowing what we did, and they'll always carry us with them, even if they were a stranger.
Maybe they'll teach it on.
I tried to teach other the little art skills I posses, in that way I spread a part of him and what he thought me in the world. 
None of us brings everything he did and was into the abyss of the forgotten. 
They might forget our names, but a part of us grows with them out there, somewhere.

My friend. I hope you're at peace, you can be sure, oh so sure that a part of you will grow within me until the end of my days. 

The sky is your canvas my friend. And you have all the colors and materials of the world. 
Now go. 
Conquer it.
Show and spread your talent all over it. 
I can't wait to see the most gorgeous sunsets you'll make. 
And we'll know you're out there, happy.

Rest in peace, my friend.