Years ago, in my first student flat, we got a new flatmate for the spare room

Years ago, when I was a kid of eighteen in my first student flat, we got a new flatmate to fill the spare room. She answered our ad and came to the door: and like you did back then, after a cursory instant coffee in the cold, poky lounge, we existing flatmates said yes.

Things went OK, but not for long. I couldn't quite work it out.

There was no ill will in it, no lack of consideration. She wasn't unkind, didn't do anything egregiously wrong. Simply put, I guess, she just wasn't on the same wavelength. It was like she couldn't go with the flow; was a sort of island that the flow moved around.

I was chosen to deliver the message, again in the cold, poky lounge. Things weren't working out. To take away the awkwardness, I suppose, I did it with a directness that, in my immaturity, I thought was being kind.

I wondered about her afterwards, though, still never quite able to work it out. I saw her from time to time, and we said hello to one another. In time, the flow took us to different parts of the motu.

Years later, we met again on Facebook, now grown ups. It was she who befriended me, I think. I saw her life play out in posts and pictures. A close-knit circle of friends. A love of animals, a care for justice. Quirkiness. An open heart. So many of the elements, big and small, that make a life worthy and good.

I don't even know if, back in the student flat those years ago, my friend even knew she was autistic. If she did, she didn't say it: maybe she felt she could not. I don't know what I would've made of it if she had. Then, all I knew about autism came from Rain Man, and stereotypes of mute kids rocking themselves in corners.

All I know is that, by the time we came together as adults, she was rocking that shit like a leather jacket. Full of life; full of her own life, on her own terms.

The thing I had done must have hurt her, deeply, at a time in her life when all of us really just want to fit in, whether we admit it or not. She had not a hint of bitterness about her. We talk about how people's brains are wired differently. This was a strength in her character, her wiring better than most of us.

My friend died tonight. She died long before she was supposed to, long before her loved ones were ready to let her go. And just like that time all those years ago, it just wasn't damn fair.

To my friend, thank you for teaching me, even though you never knew you did.

Thank you for living with authenticity and humour in a world that was not designed for you.

Thank you for being brave: braver than I was.

Many years after the time in the flat, my own kid - not much younger than my friend and I when we met - got a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. This time I understood better. And maybe I was a little wiser, more able to be kind, and less quick to judge.

Maybe, over the intervening years, a little of my friend rubbed off on me.

Go well, e hoa.