AUGUST 11, 1985 - MAY 15, 2010
I met Lorenzo in high school. He was a senior, and I was a freshman. Although we didn't talk much that school year, because of chance and circumstance, we kept in touch over the summer.
Lorenzo always kept secrets about his life. His senior year in high school, he hid the fact that he was essentially supporting himself. He never applied to college, despite how many great schools he could've gotten into; he was a genius, just so overwhelmed.
When he turned 18 he inherited his mother's pension. However, due to a mistake made by the individual filing his taxes, this money was not filed. The IRS found out about this about a year ago.
He had been in-and-out of temp jobs since he got his own apartment, but heavily relied on his mother's pension to pay the rent and for community college. He made the hard decision to go into the army a few months ago to pay for his debt. However, he recently found out that the army would not accept him because of his debt.
He fell into depression. A depression which he hid.
Soon he had run out of money, there was little food in his home, and was facing eviction. Again, he kept this a secret.
On May 14, 2010, he told his girlfriend that he was going to go see his grandparents, and ask for some money, food, and a place to stay. But that's not where he went.
Sometime between midnight and 2:00 AM that evening he arrived at the George Washington Bridge, sent a few goodbye text messages, and jumped. His body was discovered on May 15th, in the late evening.
Lorenzo was my best friend of all time…and he always will be. He was the only person I could tell all my secrets too, and the one person who always knew what to say to cheer me up.
He really understood how people thought, and always knew how to make others feel better, even if he was too guarded to tell them how he felt. As the years went by, he began confiding in me; but he still kept many of his hardships to himself.
We were extremely close. We'd often spend hours upon hours on the phone early into the morning talking about nonsense.
He was very smart, very charismatic, wonderfully creative, funny, and an amazing judge of character. He was honest and bold, and willing to do whatever he could for a friend. He was caring, empathetic - I'd even go so far as to call him empathic - and rarely said the wrong thing.
He had a myriad of people always ready to help him, but he decided to take a path without them.
Lorenzo will always be missed, always be loved, and always be in our hearts.
