For Nano…

It’s not easy to lose a friend, especially one you’ve known for practically ten years. It would’ve been ten next year, nine just this past August.

Mariano or as we all called him, ‘Nano’, was the best guy friend I could’ve ever asked for. He was always supportive, funny and he helped me a lot in college. He introduced me to a lot of my current friends and also one of the best friends I could ever ask for…Yuki. I call her Yuki because of Lucky Star. She sometimes jokingly calls me her ‘Konata’ because of how fangirl I can get. Also I’m short. How short? 5’2 1/2.

I was introduced to Nano in college and to this day I can’t remember who was the one who did it. He took me under his wing right away, highly known among the ‘freaks’ of the corner in our college. Video games, cards, anime, manga were our world and this guy was a part of it too, even if he couldn’t understand certain things. Like Yaoi. I remember all the times he whined about not getting it and all the jokes we played on him for it. He always laughed with us too…and criticized himself for falling for it after the fact.

I learned a lot from Nano over the years. He was there through boyfriend troubles, the not boyfriend troubles, my recent move back to Puerto Rico and well, you get the idea. While he never hesitated on the chance to capitalize on an ‘I told you so’ when he had given you a fair warning to not do something before going ahead and doing it anyway…Nano always said it in a way that you couldn’t be mad at him for it.

He was a huge, and I mean huge, advocate for me to be myself. That was a thing with him. The person I am is brilliant and deserves to shine through. Nano was true to himself all the time and was always advising everyone to do the same thing. He loved his rap music, he spoke the way he wanted to…he was more gangsta than anyone I’ve ever met. He didn’t just say that to me, he wanted all of his friends to be happy, he wanted all of us to be ourselves. Judgement free zone with that guy, all the time. No matter what.

Nano always gave the best advice, he would go out of his way for you even if he had to give up a little of himself for it. He just gave so much of himself to everyone of his friends. Anyone who met him had a friend for life.

I wasn’t surprised to see the amount of people that went to see him at the funeral home and I was not shocked at the amount that went with us to bury him. His reach was wide and as a teacher, he touched more people on a daily basis than when I met him in college. His students loved him and all had fantastic things to say about him, much like me and my friends.

This is a friend I miss every day. I was able to see him in the hospital before he passed but I never got to hang out with him since I got back home, which really sucked. I wanted to get one of his customary bear hugs, have him greet me and call me out in the nickname I earned in college for my ‘squeaky’ behavior. I was his ‘Squeaky’ toy. He was the only person allowed to call me that after I graduated college. Now that we all want his legacy to live on, I’ll have to let more people call me that. It’s how a lot of people recognize me nowadays anyway.

Just like Smosh Games did their part in helping me out of a hard patch in my life, Nano was there too. Thank you Nano. I’ll miss you everyday. Until the next time I see you huggy bear.

And that’s it. I’m out. Thanks for reading guys. I’ll see you in the next post.