Rest in Peace, Waar

I remember when we first chatted, it was over some stupid Fakku Forum drama llamas. It was short, sweet, to the point, and I thought to myself, "wow...what an asshole." for the way things were handled, but in the end you handled it and quelled things down. We didn't speak much after the fact until you fired up the Waifu game; the second to last one before you would hand it off to PumpJack. I had a question, you answered it quickly and that was that. A much more pleasant experience.

Time went on, and one day I was brought into a Skype group that you were in, and we started to talk more, we added each other on League and started to play games together every so often with friends, but still we didn't talk more than in passing talking about sports trivia and the lot. Fast Forward to 2016, Overwatch came out. I remember starting a Discord server and you being one of the early members to really come in and play. From here, almost every single night for the next half a year, we would play OW together either duos or with friends. This was where I really got to know more about you, and you went from Waar to Paul...though I still called you Waar because it felt better.

We would chat more outside of gaming; talking about books, Canadian Food specialties, trash talk more sports, even go into religion/politics,
and all those hot topics. I learned more about you, your background, your current health state, just your overall personality. The daily cycle would be: we would game, then talk and bullshit for a bit before calling it a night. Through all that, I finally figured out what type of person you are. Still an Asshole but that was just how you were, with anything. You weren't afraid to be who you were, and it showed you genuine good nature under it all. Thinking back, I can remember us getting into arguments over our differing opinions on how games should go,
but at the end of it all we shrugged it off and just had fun.

Quick time skip to that following winter. Things have happened, and my health started to take a down turn. I received a lot of support from IRL and Online friends (the ones that knew the whole situation), and I especially received a lot of support from you. With some jokes about both of our health conditions sprinkled in, you made it not seem as bad for either of us, and we bonded over that. I don't think I ever really sat down with you and ever said Thank you in a big way, or really let you know how much that meant when you would randomly ask how I was doing when I got super busy with life. It's a bit overdue, but thank you, for all of it.

We may not have been super close, or best friends, but I considered you a very good friend. I know you knew that but I don't think I said it out loud enough. I'll miss all those games we played together, and all those "intellectual" talks into the evenings; but most of all I'll just miss knowing that you were around, always ready to do something.

I hope you are in a better place, and that your family, and friends get some closure. Your departure was unexpected, and way to early. I just wanted to say one last time: Thank you, I'll miss you, and you won't be forgotten.