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John Roderick, then a senior correspondent for the Associated Press, was one of the first people I met when I moved to Japan to become a foreign correspondent. An untested rookie, I was amazed and pleased at how gracious, patient and welcoming he was to somebody he'd just met.

He could've been much different. After all, he was already a legend in both Japan and China.

Now he's bidding us all sayonara. In his 90s and retired in Honolulu, John is following the setting sun. He's fading, but he doesn't want any measures taken merely to keep him alive. As Ed White, another legendary AP correspondent in Saigon, Tokyo and Seoul (and one of my mentors) put it: "He knew how to live, and now I guess he is going to show us how to die."