Student bids farewell to faithful friend 'Forty'

What I am about to write could have come from anybody's mouth who knew him. It is now 3:00 a.m., and I find it very difficult to sleep. I left many messages on his machine and beeped him many times, but he still has not returned my calls. I guess it is time to accept the reality that he is no longer with us.

He was someone that everybody wanted to know. He was also somebody who wanted to know everybody. He walked around our campus with so much pride. He loved to be involved at the university as much as possible. When he attended social gatherings, people paraded around, waiting to have their chance to talk with him, to ask him how he was doing. They all wanted to say hello to this affectionate student who absolutely loved people. The only thing you had to do was talk to him; understand any aspect about him, and let him know something of you, and he would want to be your friend for life. He was a sentinel to many students whether they wanted it or not. He always cared about how you were feeling, and wanted to know how life was treating you.

In many ways, he was someone that everyone wanted to be. He was extraordinarily popular, but not pompous. He did not choose to be friends with somebody because of their popularity or physical features. He was friends with anyone who wanted to be his friend. He was no ordinary person. If you were sick, he went out of his way to give you a call, or stop by to give you some hot soup in his dedicated devotion to making you feel better (I was a freshman with very few friends when he did this for me). Though he knew so many people who would go out of their way to do something for him, he received more pleasure from doing things for other people.

He was a temporalist that you could call at all hours of the night, if you were having difficulties in life. He would embrace you and your pain, until feeling better about yourself was inevitable. He had a canny way of making fun of himself in order to make you feel better about yourself. His door was always open to anyone. He would instantly give you the shirt on his back and the food on his plate if one so needed it. Anything that was his, was also yours. He was the kindest of kind. If he ever thought he offended somebody, he took extreme measures to clarify his actions. His worst fear was unnacceptance by anyone.

There will be remnants of this remarkable human being in my mind as in so many of yours as long as we live. It will be hard to forget the man who was renowned for his philanthropic ways, and one of my only true friends in life.

Christopher Gibbson (aka, Forty) will be missed immensely by many.

By Brian Ackerman (letter)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
May 7, 1997