Before get­ting on his train, Jason asked me if I was a hug-person. It was the right ques­tion, because I’m most assuredly a hug-person, and we embraced before he stepped out onto the platform.

We grew up at the same time in the same neigh­bour­hood — a small sub­urb some­where in the mid­dle of the 500km that sep­a­rates us — but never had a chance to meet until he gave a pre­sen­ta­tion in town for the HR Council for the Nonprofit Sector. Until now, we only com­mu­ni­cated through blog com­ments and e-mail exchanges.

When I first met him, it struck me how much tall he was, and how much deeper his voice was than I expected.

Jason is like me in so many ways, some­thing I find extremely rare. We share a strong self-awareness and a pen­chant for self-improvement, as well as the same views on love and tastes in women. Perhaps it could be said that Jason is an extro­verted ver­sion of me. We could dis­cuss things we nor­mally reserve for our close friends, and con­tinue as if we had already known each other’s sto­ries for years. He’s a true kin­dred spirit, and many times I felt like believ­ing in him meant I believed in myself as well.

Brunch was filled with such stim­u­la­tion that I for­got to take a pic­ture, so I set­tled for this one when I went to see him off at the train sta­tion. I’m so glad I was able to cap­ture his per­pet­ual smile, that same smile I see in his pic­tures when he trav­el­ing the world, in Budapest, Ghana, New Orleans, and other places with names too for­eign for me to remember.