The number of your age could be a burden. As the aging continues, as your hair slowly turned white, as your skin wrinkled over time, you are expected to be more balanced, more matured. At one point in your life, you are supposed to teach your youngster on how to hold their sh*ts together–which you did gracefully.

But what if that’s not the case?

I knew a guy, a middle-aged man, who still doesn’t know how to take care of himself even when his mustache turned gray and his teeth fallen out, thus, one of the things he couldn’t teach to the young people around him is how to hold your sh*ts together.

He’s a sweetheart, I could vouch for that. He’s one sensitive and nice guy. He’s someone who always knows when to listen and when to talk. Someone who’ll actually think about your well-being. Someone who wouldn’t try to manipulate you for a selfish or evil purpose. A genuine and beautiful soul. The one who talks about wonders and space, alien and ghost, encourages others to be brave, try new things, and so on.

A free and happy soul, he is. So free that he couldn’t hold a job. Alcohol got the best out of him. His friends took advantage of him. Almost everyone was either saying nothing or talking bad about him. But he’s always happy and positive. Always there. Always present. Always trying his best to make everyone happy with every little thing that he got.

Problems come and go, but he’s always around. Always ready to help. Even if he’s the one who’s creating the problem in the first place and he’s the one who had to apologize and beg for forgiveness and mercy. He’s always around.

One day, I sit with him on a two-seated sofa. We’re watching a documentary about Antarctica. He’s not his usual self, I could tell that. He’s silent and stoic. Doesn’t crack a joke like he would usually do.

Then out of nowhere, he told me this with a teary eye:

No matter what you see about a person. No matter what others tell you. No matter what you think about that person. Never judge that person.

He died a year later due to a constant health neglect.

And I can’t seem to stop asking myself again and again:

What happened to that sweet, sensitive man and what kind of judgment that he heard that day that a documentary of Antarctica can’t make him happy?

Has he heard my judgment about him too, the one that I kept inside my heart and never told anybody else about?