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Today an UTEZ student died.

I learned of the news after giving a one-hour English conversation lesson to a new student who is 48 years old. In his introduction, he made it a point to mention that he was single, to recite his phone number, to tell me I was beautiful, and to ask me if I too was single (among some other less consequential things). I managed to steer the conversation to more manageable topics like soccer and religion, but it didn't totally dissipate my frustration and momentary discomfort.

After checking my watch about 15 or more times, the hour ended, and I cut him off in the middle of a thought to declare that class had ended. I reached across the table pointedly to shake his hand and said, "Nice to meet you." He hesitated, and in that moment I thought he was going to ask for my number. I braced for it.

He looked at me quizzically, "How can I say, 'Que Diós le bendiga?'" ("How do you say, 'May God bless you.'")

Boy, was I mistaken.

After saying bye, I walked into the English office next door and heard the news of the student who had died, apparently in a car accident with his girlfriend. I didn't know him, but hearing the news made me take a step back. It was one of those moments when everything in a split second becomes more simple; when suddenly I see my surroundings through a wider lens; when I realize that life and humanity aren't such crazy, complicated concepts. It was a moment when I saw the face of a fellow (male) teacher, one who is normally the token jovial jokester of the office, crumble into a cave of shock and sadness.

I think that as human beings, we acquire a series of masks throughout our lives, masks that make up what we call our "identity." I have my teacher mask, my foreigner mask, my friend mask, my white girl mask, my American mask, my scholar mask, my sister mask, etc. But the essence of human beings, when all the masks are stripped off, I think, is actually quite the same. At the core of our being, we all crave companionship and love; we all eat food to survive; we all laugh when we're happy and feel pain when we see others suffer or die.

Culture is a mask. I was put off by my student's comments on being single, but I reminded myself that it was a cultural norm. By the end of the lesson, he had taken off that mask and had sent me off with a genuine, heartfelt "God bless."

On my bus ride home from school, I stared pensively out the window thinking of these things. In what felt like slow motion I made eye contact with a weepy-eyed girl inside of a corner store sitting behind the counter waiting blankly for customers who didn't come. I saw an older man, maybe 70 years old, inside his garage, sitting on a bucket, hunched over at an angle of 90 degrees, eyes fixed steadily on the dirt floor below.

A friend recently shared a quote on facebook, "You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept." (Kahlil Gibran)

It's true, although tragic; at what time do you feel you know a person better than at their most vulnerable moment?

Call me simplistic or idealistic, but I dare you to get out there and try it yourself; get someone to take off their masks. It is beautiful.