Last year, the Winter Sports Assembly was postponed for Nick Sears. The gym lights were dimmed, “Keep Holding On” by Avril Lavigne was played, and a power point slideshow was shown with pictures of Nick and the words “My name is Nick Sears. I have cancer.” Then he paraded into center court while some people clapped, some people cried, and everyone felt horrible for this boy they didn’t know.

Nick Sears died on Thursday, February 21st, right after the lunar eclipse. It’s an expected surprise, but one that causes you to flinch anyway. He was there in front of the entire school, and now no one will ever see him again. If his life were a song, it wouldn’t be Avril. Whether you knew this about him or not, he still might be one of those first people of many you will know to disappear. He won’t be in the hallway wearing a suit, and mostly he won’t be in the corner of the Children’s Hospital playroom playing piano.

You could almost say I studied Nick Sears, because I was obsessed with the way he lived. I had never felt anything so sobering as this person who actually didn’t spend a single second of his free time doing something he didn’t completely enjoy. He really didn’t care what other people thought of him. He was always very busy searching for other things, which turned out to be the same things we’re all searching for.

Everything about him had extra intensity. His emails were written in all caps, without worry about spelling, and ending with a different face made of colons and parentheses to summarize his mood. When he got mad, he did $15,000 dollars worth of damage to his mom’s brand new Lynnwood house. And when he had a crush, it was always love. He knew he was vulnerable, and he showed it. He would talk until tape recorders were filled. And then he would keep talking.

When you die young, you die important; like you’ll be young forever. It’s more tragic and more significant, kind of the way he liked things. He lived dramatically, and in a hurry. And when you think about it, he died that way too.