We have heard many reflections on Professor Mayosi's death. None will ever know what happened, and in reflecting, we run the risk of misrepresenting his life. But we would also be remiss if we did not begin to try to imagine what would lead someone to such an extreme act.

All of us in the university and healthcare sphere are looking for ways to make sense of the shocking tragedy of the death of Professor Mayosi, Dean of the UCT Faculty of Health Sciences. A death which, alone, would have shaken the medical and academic world but that has the added pain related to the nature of his death by suicide.

This is a deep pain, especially for those who were close to him but also for those many of us whose lives brushed against his in innumerable ways. Professor Bongani Mayosi was just always there. This larger than life story of a black South African from Nqamakwe in the Amatole district of the Eastern Cape - beating all the odds to become an academic, clinician and university leader. Someone who was also the ordinary and approachable person who walked briskly among us down the corridors of Groote Schuur Hospital....