Victor Villanueva: Obituary

Abstract

On the Loss of our Friend VictorVictor was much more than a colleague to me. He was a friend. On Tuesday, the 27th of August, a few days before he passed away, he was an examiner in the final defense of a master student. Although his state of health had already deteriorated to the point of no return, Victor had no intention of giving up on his responsibilities. With his noticeably slower and feeble gait, he reached the examination room a few minutes late. Despite excruciating headache and the fact that his increasing physical debilities were unable to keep up with his mental strength and optimism, he keenly sat through the exam and with genuine interest in the content of the research work presented, asked questions with zeal and excitement, and even proposed a few possible future applications of the work.Just after the exam was over, we all had to move to the main building to sign the official document. Victor struggled again to go up the stairs. By the time he reached the final stair, he was completely out of breath. He was less than a few meters away from the secretary´s office, but his fragile body needed rest. He looked at me, smiled feebly and sat down on a chair to catch his breath. “Give me a few moments Adnan. I shall soon be with you.” was all he could say. Shortly, he mustered up the last few atoms of his strength, and walked into the office to sign the documents. Despite seeing him so ill of health, I simply could not see it coming, not so soon at least. I could not foresee the tragic fact that his would only be the second funeral I would be attending after accompanying him a decade ago to bury his unborn son. Traveling on the wings of memory, I would later recall those sad days of early 2004. I was shell shocked when Victor’s loving son was being laid to rest when he passed away in his mother’s womb after seven months of conception. At that time, I was expecting my own son of the same age and I could not fathom how a father could survive this tragedy. Victor’s immense inner strength of will enabled him to survive this tremendous loss and his failing kidneys till his physical capacities finally surrendered to the indifferent and often cruel course of nature.Victor was born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico, on March 1, 1970. Shortly afterwards, his family moved to Zamora, Michoacán, where he received elementary and high school education. Later he moved to Morelia and attended the University of Michoacan from where he received his bachelor degree in 1993. After carrying out his master at Metropolitan University (Iztapala) in Mexico City in 1995, he joined University of Guanajuato (Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico). There he obtained his doctoral degree under thetitle: Quantization of Gauge Systems on Riemannian Manifolds under the supervision of Prof. J. L. Lucio from University of Guanajuato and Prof. J. Govaerts from the Universite Catholique de Louvain-la Neuve, Belgium (1999). As a researcher, Victor had about 20 articles in international journals to his credit and more than a 100 citations. Though his academic achievements are numerous and earned him a respectable place in the national scientific community, I would not dwell on it more. I miss him as a friend.