For friends and colleagues of UNM student Juan Romero, who passed away last week, the reality still hasn’t sunk in.
“I’m still partly in the shock phase. I haven’t fully accepted it,” said Armando Martinez. “I feel compelled to text him still.”
When Martinez met Romero seven or eight years ago at a birthday party, he said the two became fast friends with a lot in common, including their musical tastes and a similar, “goofy” sense of humor.
“He was a very loyal friend, and the type of person you only meet once in a lifetime,” Martinez said. “Definitely a character for sure.”
Romero was an avid reader — especially of philosophy — and a great conversationalist, he said, with an ability to “explain the unexplainable” and offer “solid life advice.”
“He was very wise beyond his years,” Martinez said. “Probably one of the best conversationalists I’ve ever met.”
Romero also provided an outlet for his friends, including Martinez
“There were some rough times I was going through (and) he would always pick up the phone and be willing to just listen to me,” he said. “If I was ever in trouble, he would definitely come help me out.”
Romero’s thoughtfulness toward his friends manifested in various ways, whether it was with deep conversation or something a little less serious.
Martinez remembers the night fondly, when he and a mutual friend were “feeling down on our luck” and “upset about where our lives were,” when Romero showed up “out of the blue” with a trunk full of fireworks.
“We spent the whole night blowing up fireworks,” he said. “It lifted up our spirits and it was very juvenile, in many ways. But it’s a very fond memory I have.”
Romero was not just remembered fondly by his friends, but also by those at UNM, like professor Iain Thomson.
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Thomson remembers Romero as a “very smart” and creative student, but also a funny and kind person who was a good friend to other students and “pleasure to be around.”
“He didn’t seem to take life too seriously, which is a sign of deep understanding,” he said. “Juan was always ready with an insightful remark or humorous comment, and had a knack for lightening the mood when things got too dark.”
Thomson said he bumped into Romero at the Election Night event downtown, and the two spent over an hour together, listening to a band from the back of the crowd as the results came in.
With a “sad look in his eyes,” Romero cracked jokes about the fact that America would elect a divisive and controversial presidential candidate in Donald Trump.
“His resilient good humor in that very dark night helped me get through it myself,” he said. “The world will be less bright without him in it — the whole philosophical community at UNM mourns his terrible and untimely loss.”
Martinez said the loss of Romero, although fresh, has already given him a perspective on friendship.
“Dealing with the death of a friend, it’s a very, very heavy thing. It really makes you value your friends,” he said. “Life’s precious, and you should never take your friends for granted — you should keep them close.”
That includes friends, both passed and still living, he said, but there is no replacing Romero’s sense of humor and his acceptance of life’s ups and downs. That’s something that is able to reassure Martinez as he copes with his friend’s passing.
“I don’t want to reimagine the past with some sort of sentimental lens, but I think he knows that he was loved by his friends and I know, personally, that he wasn’t afraid to die,” he said.
Although Romero was young, with dreams of becoming a philosophy professor, Martinez knew Romero didn’t want to die, but also that he wasn’t afraid of death. Not in a fearlessness, risk taker way, but in the way of acceptance.
“Accepting of the idea that we all die and that is just the end result of life, as ridiculous as that sounds,” he said. “If Juan could speak to me now, he would say, ‘It happens, people die.’ That’s just kind of the sense of humor he had.”
The last time Martinez saw Romero was the Saturday before his passing, when they spent the whole day hanging out, shopping and just conversing.
“‘Hey man, it seems like you’re doing really well these days,’ And he said, ‘I am,’” Martinez said. “That’s literally the last time I saw him or spoke to him in person.”
Matthew Reisen is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @MReisen88.
