At the end of this past fall semester, the Oswego State campus lost a student, a poet, a dear friend, a protector and an appreciator of life.

Justin Carmona, a senior communication and social interaction major from the Bronx, touched the lives of many and brought a sense of warmth to any room he walked into, according to some of his close friends, junior Beatriz Rosa, senior Tenaja Smith-Butler and senior Zelly Vargas.

“The same way he wasn’t afraid to offer help, he was never afraid to ask for help, and that is something I have to thank him for,” Rosa said. “It’s something that I learned from him: don’t be afraid to go to your sources.”

Vargas, who had been friends with him since high school, described Carmona as similar to an older brother for her because of the fierce projection he gave to anyone he cared for. She said he would tease her and listen to her like an older sibling would. Vargas said Carmona always knew how to make anyone feel better if they were having a bad day by telling a joke, ordering a pizza or going out to do something.

“Whenever he left, the room felt so empty,” Rosa said. “Nothing is going to replace those nights we would stay up whether we were talking about random topics or we were just talking about our lives at home.”

Smith-Butler expressed how Carmona actively listened when she spoke about an issue she was experiencing and then make her laugh.

Rosa said her favorite thing she used to do with Carmona was braiding and twisting his hair during the countless hours he spent visiting her during their friendship. She had even bought him hair beads in the shape of a fat cat due to his strong love for them and planned to put them in his hair this spring for his birthday.

Carmona felt a deep love for music and the arts, especially his favorite Broadway show, “Hamilton.” He often listened to and sang along with the score of the musical. Rosa said his favorite line was “I am the one thing in life I can control” from the song, “Wait For It” because he could identify with it.

While listening to music, Carmona analyzed and appreciated every musical decision because it had a special meaning, according to Rosa. Vargas said even the bass in a song had meaning to him.

Vargas also recounted a time when they were in a room with disco lights shining on the ceiling with different colors and patterns. She said Carmona all of a sudden laid down and began intently watching the lights. When she asked him why, he told her to watch and she would understand.

“All I saw was an array of colors at first,” Vargas said. “Then, I realized it was like a meditative process for him, looking at the colors and the meaning behind it and thinking about what it meant to him. And then he’s like, ‘Isn’t life so beautiful?’”

Carmona was known to often give heartwarming hugs. Smith-Butler said her favorite memory of him was when he gave her one of these hugs because of the emotion she felt through it. She said it had been one of the nicest things anyone had done for her without realizing it.

“It was more than just the comfort of his arms,” Smith-Butler said. “He was conveying something.”

Another passion of Carmona’s was poetry. Rosa, a creative writing major, said he was able to put rhyming lines together and use familiar references without making it sound like a cliche. She said he put his heart into his poems, which he recited on Thursday nights at Open Mic Night in the Lake Effect Cafe.

“I forgot what poem of his this was, but he was talking about how he found someone beautiful and how they don’t compare to any artwork that he’s seen, and he said something like, ‘Next to you, Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” might as well be a Jackson Pollock piece,’” Rosa said.

Vargas said the first time he shared his poetry at Open Mic Night, he told her he was really nervous but did not show it while he stood in front of the crowd. She said he had “wowed the audience.”

Carmona also spent his time building complex models, working as a desk attendant in Hart Hall and inspiring his friends to recognize their potential and worth. Rosa said Carmona always found the good in people and built their confidence when they could not see it themselves. He also had participated in the IDGA Foundation Next Gen Leader program and was a mentor to younger students in high school.

“Aside from all of the funny jokes that we usually made in class, he said, ‘Zelly, I think you can be something great someday.’ That was the first time in a long time in high school that I’ve heard someone genuinely mean those words,” Vargas said.

During the last week of the fall semester, Carmona was admitted to Oswego Hospital. Upon visiting him, Rosa and Vargas said he kept saying “I love you” and “Thank you for being here.” Vargas had charged his phone, kissed his forehead and said she would come back the next day after work when she left his hospital room the night of Dec. 11.

Rosa said she had ironed some of his clothes and gathered what he needed for his final exam, and she went to visit him to braid his hair and go out to eat the morning of Dec. 12, only to find out he had died just a few hours after she had left the night before.

“It’s almost as if he was waiting for everyone to leave,” Rosa said.

According to a campus-wide email that day from Jerri Howland, interim vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management and dean of students, Carmona had died of complications from pneumonia.

Vargas said if she could say something to him now, she would thank him for being the longest consecutive friend in her life and for being like a sibling.

“If there’s one thing that if he were here that I would want to say to him, it’s ‘Thank you for making existing just a bit more comfortable,’” Rosa said.

Photo provided by Zelly Vargas