IN MEMORY OF MIESZKO TALARCZYK

EULOGY BY URBAN SKYTT

"He really tried living his life to the fullest and since he was such an efficient person I think he, for the most part, succeeded in doing so."

All of your life you are doing things together with your friends - and learning things about them in the process - without reflecting to much upon it. You can't imagine that you will have to remember those particular things because they will end up being the last memories you have of those friends - you assume that there will be many more funny situations and new experiences to share with them in the future.

Then all of a sudden a tragedy occurs and one of your friends is gone... forever. You start to think about what you actually do remember - all of those small things that didn't seem that important at the time are now the only thing you have left. The memories could be good ones... or bad ones - likely there are a bit of both and they are really all that you have left.

All of a sudden something terrible happens: a friend - my friend - is said to be one of the missing in a tsunami disaster. How could Mieszko be missing after a tsunami? What are the odds for that? I absolutely refused to believe that something that unlikely could be true.

After some long weeks it was confirmed - Mieszko was one of the casualties. He wasn't coming back from Thailand with some clever excuse for his absence. He was never coming back... All those memories that really didn't feel important at the time now felt absolutely necessary to remember:

• How good food could make him the happiest person alive and how he could talk forever about some new spice he had found.

• His professionalism when it came to his work and other areas of interest.

• His ability to annoy people around him by acting totally indifferent to things and other people. (Actually really funny on some occasions).

• How funny he looked without his hat. I think I have only seen him without it on a handful of occasions.

• How considerate he could be towards people he liked - his friends of course, but other people as well - and from what I've heard, still be somewhat arrogant (honest, that is) to people he didn't like...

• His humour and his ability to see the positive in every situation... unless it involved bad food, of course.

It's the sum of everything good and bad that makes a person unique and of course Mieszko had his bad sides, but they were very, very few. That is what I think makes it all the more sad that something like this would happen to him, of all persons.

He really tried living his life to the fullest and since he was such an efficient person I think he, for the most part, succeeded in doing so. You would think that that would be a comforting thought but I am sorry to say that I think that fact makes it more how should I say?.. unfair that he wasn't allowed to live longer. He could have accomplished a lot - not saying that he hasn't already, because he has and that's the point. I really would have liked to see what he had accomplished ten or twenty years from now.

I miss him a lot...

Urban Skytt

Anders: "Mieszko never had the chance to be a hero or a survivor. He most likely died in the first wave. I do know that the last thing he did was to protect his girlfriend so in my eyes he died as a hero."

Jon: "I still pick up the phone to call you just to ask if you think we'll go to Japan soon or if that drummer still sucks /.../ and I remember there is no one on the other side of the line."

Jesper: "I regularly find myself chuckling when I'm on the subway or walking around and come to think of Mieszko's moronically funny sense of humor, or some stupid situation we have been in."