I can’t remember the first time I met Adam. But what I can remember is that every subsequent time he walked into the house it would seem as though my home ‘woke up’. He was pure and enthusiastic energy. I remember sitting with him before he asked my sister to the matric dance and thinking to myself “she is going to have the best night of her life going with him”. It was no surprise that she did. She loved him. I remember my last conversation with Adam. It was at a wedding , where he was trying to get my mom to dance, and when I told him she was in mourning and couldn’t he was ridiculously apologetic. I laughed, smiled and told him it was the sweetest thing in the world that he was trying so hard. He didn’t have to do that , ask his friends mom to dance , but that’s just who he was . If he saw something he could make better that’s what he did, with no reservations or hesitation. However , it seems as though in his efforts to put as much light in the world as humanly possible he didn’t save enough for himself. He was consumed internally hhu. by a darkness that we will never understand. The Jewish community is a beautiful place, but with all that community comes competition and comparison. And by virtue of our people there is a lot of excellence to behold. When you look up and see how brilliant someone else has done , your accomplishments however numerous or painstakingly attained will seem lacking. For example my four distinctions in matric were excellent for myself at the time, but quite insignificant compared to my sister’s respective 8 and 10. It is so hard to look beyond the latter and towards what is truly important, the former. Human beings are imperfect. We all have light and dark inside of us. Things that we like and things that we don’t. Adam was so intent on pushing all that light into the world that he all that remained was for him to focus on what was dark, what was different. We will never know what was going on his head , but what we do know with absolute certainty is that he was wrong. Every self deprecating , hateful word he had about himself could be matched ten fold with praise from his peers and family and to be honest even strangers that were in his presence for 2 minutes. However those become irrelevant if you aren’t listening , and Adam wasn’t listening. If he had there is no way he would have done what he did. But it is unfair of us to have asked that of him, because I am the belief that at the time it wasn’t a choice for Adam to ignore reality , but a result of mental illness coupled with difficulty understanding who he was. However the reality was that Adam would have been accepted for who he was , had he even decided to put shoes on his hands and walk backwards for the rest of his life. His heart was still the same. I know that’s why my sister loved him , because his heart was gold. I don’t know what to say to her , because I cannot imagine losing my best friend. But in essence I would like to communicate the following to her. The choice for Adam to take him own life was his own and nothing anyone did or didn’t do could change it. The choice as to whether she will live her life honoring his memory and taking strength from them is hers. The only person capable of evaluating your self worth and making your decisions is you. Keep Adam close to your heart but look inside and realize that you have a lot to do in this world, so hold your head up , tie his light to your heart , and keep on going. Because if Adam Seef loved you and directed all his light to you, you owe it to him to love yourself.