When I was in secondary three (that’s nine years ago), I remember we had a new teacher in our school. He was Mr Gunasegaran, who taught us English. He was probably in his early 30’s, and had a very charming, youthful character. We all loved him because he was close to us and always made us laugh. After several weeks of teaching us English, he also became our PE teacher.

I remember one day, during one of our PE sessions, my friends and I were talking about something funny when Mr Guna, upon hearing our jokes, said to us “Hey… *points to his feet*… even my toes are laughing… hahaha”. We always enjoyed his lessons. To many of us, he was more than just a teacher. He was a friend, in and out of the classroom. A few days ago, I learned that our beloved Mr Guna had passed away.

A friend told me that he had fallen from a roof a week earlier, and had been in coma since. My body went numb upon learning this. A group of (current) students attended his funeral wake, which I’m sure I’d have gone if I’d known. Many of my former classmates didn’t know about it either. But as my friends Sanjay and Anton put it, at least Mr Guna left us all with good memories. I’m sure he will be fondly missed.

God bless his soul.