Yesterday my guild master logged in and private messaged me saying he had some bad news. Oh? I figured it was about my poor raiding attendance or someone ninja’d something and we had to /gkick. It was far far worse. One of our long time guild members committed suicide over the weekend.
I didn’t know him on a personal level but I did on a fellow gamer and online guild member level. In that, I’ve known him for 4-5 years now. Many members of our guild are located in the Colorado area of the country so there were others that knew him much better than I and also on a personal level. The reason I’m posting about this sensitive subject is because even though I didn’t know him personally, it is really impacting me. The reason started this blog is to share my experiences inside and outside of World of Warcraft and how it affects me. This affects me (and our guild) deeply. None of us saw this coming. Nobody. I thought it might have actually been an accident but apparently the news came straight from his mother which was given to another guild member who was a close friend of his. He was just as active in the guild as I and he participated in our voice chat like anyone else. In fact he was on the day before with no signs that would suggest anything was wrong. It’s an odd feeling knowing that he’ll never log in again. None of us knew he was feeling this way. He left behind a wife and two children.
I think that is what makes this hit close to home. I think he was about my age and I have a wife and three children. I can’t even begin to imagine how things were before this happened and how things are now. I an only guess that he felt things would be better if he weren’t around. That is why I wanted to post this. I wanted to get this off my chest as an open message to him.
“Things are not better. I don’t know if you felt you would be missed or not but you are. I didn’t know you as well as I could have and I’m sure you could say the same about me. I can’t help but imagine that you might have felt your action would not have impacted those that didn’t know you so well. If so you were wrong. I am saddened by your choice and wish I had the chance to know you better. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those you left behind. You are missed.”
Our Guildmaster restructured guild ranks yesterday and set this player and his alt to the highest awarded rank of “Rest in peace”. This is how we’ll honor his memory.
I’ve disabled commenting on this post because nothing else really needs to be said. This post was mainly for myself and I thank you all for any condolences you might have posted on the matter. Thank you for reading.
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