But if strength and hard work were two of Navin's defining characteristics, another was selflessness. Navin worked hard, but almost always, it seemed, he worked on behalf of others. For his senior thesis, Navin spent time collecting in India on the exploitation of child laborers.

I saw this side of Navin myself later in college, when I went to a meeting of the Harvard-Radcliffe Cancer Society. Navin, of course, had joined long before me, and was vice-president of the small group. But I noticed right away that Navin was not perceived in the room as a sufferer from cancer; he was perceived as a leader in an effort he had pioneered to help, tutor and befriend children living with the disease.

Navin finally succumbed to his illness on Monday in his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, at the age of 23. For those of us in the Class of 1999 who knew him, the news has been hard to handle.

It would be difficult under any circumstance to lose someone our age, about whom so many of us cared. But spread around the country and the world, it is even harder. We can only express our disbelief via e-mail, and console one another over the phone. We can't come together for a proper memorial.

Yet, in a way, the fact that so many of us in so many different places stopped to remember Navin is the greatest testament of all to a life well-lived. Navin was remembered with not one memorial service, but hundreds. Yesterday, I found Navin's Rhodes essay on the Web, at http://adams.student.harvard.edu/fellowships/Navins_winning_essay.htm. It is there as a model for other students aspiring to win the scholarship. But what it says provides a model for us all. "Tomorrow is never guaranteed," Navin wrote--four words he seemed to truly understand.

I will remember Navin as a friend and as a decent, strong and selfless person, who truly made the most of the time he had.

The world is going to need us to remember him. For as another friend put it this week, with Navin Narayan gone, all of us now have a little more work to do.