After a long and courageous fight, Richard Light succumbed to an illness last week. Everyone who knew him will fondly remember him. He was only twenty-eight or twenty-nine-ish.
Likely born in Toronto, Richard also lived there for a while. Except for the times he lived in other places. He talked about Nova Scotia a few times. Let’s just say he was in Halifax for university. That sounds about right.
Richard was a tall man and he was a proud man. He was at least of above-average height and not visibly ashamed of anything. Yes, it can be said with a degree of certainty that he was not in a constant state of embarrassment and humiliation, and that he was taller than a lot of guys and most women.
Music was especially important to Richard. One always saw him wearing his headphones in a deep state of concentration. He would even use it as an excuse not to talk to someone in the elevator, like he couldn’t hear a person say hi with his headphones on even though he clearly could. Picturing him with a guitar, casually strumming away, also seems reasonable enough. Once he mentioned a concert he wanted to go to. Music was part of his life.
Richard’s true passion, though, was books. He would always be reading those things. Usually thin ones because those were easier to carry to work. Occasionally, though, he would lug around a thicker one. He read so many, it is difficult to think of his favourites, or even his preferred genre. In any case, whether the book was thick or thin he always read for at least an hour, every weekday, at lunch. And magazines. He read magazines too.
Describing Richard as private is a bit of an understatement. He was very private. He rarely spoke, and a Google search of his name did not bring up many results. It’s frustrating. Truly, finding information about his life, his interests and his accomplishments is surprisingly difficult. A Google image search did turn up this one photograph of him with a guitar. So that part about him strumming a guitar is now very plausible. Though he’s wearing a blue wig and making a funny face. So maybe he did not play guitar and it is just kind of a staged joke photo.
Richard loved to make people laugh with jokes. Whether it was by wearing a crazy wig or making a hilarious face, he always kept people in stitches. Sometimes he would even send friends and co-workers email forwards of “funny” cat pictures. Often these were not that funny. Still, one had to laugh because it would have been awkward not to, and he would be standing there waiting for your reaction.
Apparently Richard had a bit of a cruel sense of humour as well. For example, he did not hesitate to ask huge favours of people — things they did not want to do but could not turn down without looking like an asshole — for what must have been his own personal amusement. There is really no other explanation for asking an acquaintance to do something that a family member or close friend clearly should have done. Though perhaps that was because he was lonely and was not close with his family. But then in that funny guitar photo he seems to be at a party with friends. And didn’t he live with his parents?
Anyway, one thing that could be said for sure was that he worked at Elite Event Solutions from 2005 or 2006 to 2008 in the marketing department in some capacity. His colleagues remember him warmly as someone who attended work regularly and was not a total dick like the other guys in marketing. And he responded to emails quickly enough. Jeanette in finance thought he was creepy, but she thought every guy was creepy. Sometimes he went out for beers after work and did a decent impression of Dan Pratkins, the head of sales. (Dan is, by the way, a great guy: solid family man, veteran, volunteers in soup kitchens, and he loves the outdoors. It would be an honour to write his obituary. A lot of great material to work with.)
Well, that pretty much covers it for Richard. Did I mention those funny cat emails? God, those were annoying. I guess he also liked cats or something.
Okay, that’s got to be 750 words.
Richard will be remembered by his parents, two or three sisters, possibly a brother, that girl he went to lunch with sometimes, his roommate Dave or Dean, and some other people.
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