R.I.P Gordon (aka. NightWolfAlpha)

Hey Guys,

I tried to live stream a memorial for my friend Gordon but that didn't work out too well when I lost my shit and needed to end the stream. So I figured I would just come and type here instead since I need to get this out. Gordon was a great guy and a unique person that you couldn't forget. I met him at the first PDXLAN I attended because he was sitting just a few seats down from me and he was very boisterous and had a great sense of humor not unlike my own. Everyone knew him by his signature non-mistakable voice that sounded like he had permanent laryngitis but it's just how he sounded.

He was always nice to me and always sat close to me at the LAN events so we could easily talk shit to each-other while gaming. He also was always talking about his daughter and wife and was a hell of a family man. He would take time to call and talk to his daughter in the middle of gaming sessions, etc and you could tell he enjoyed every minute of it. I once won a PC case at PDXLAN and gave it to him so he could build a PC out of it because I couldn't fit the damn thing in my car and I wanted it to go to a good home and knew he would actually put it to use.

After my 4th or 5th PDXLAN with him he had to move away to Colorado so we said out goodbyes but he always said he would end up coming back for another LAN once things were all settled down even if he had to drive there. I stayed in touch with him afterward on Facebook but my biggest regret was leaving Facebook because of all the political bullshit and losing touch with him over the last 2 months just because that was our main way of communicating and I walked away from it. When I came back the Facebook algorithm kicked him out of my news feed so it was out of sight out of mind. I thought about him all the time from the Twitter posts, etc and I knew he watched my streams and always had plans to game with him but didn't follow through and I'm kicking myself in the ass right now.

He didn't have any medical issues that would cause him to die in his sleep and it was completely unexpected to his family and me. I have lost a lot of friends over the last few years to cancer and other things that you kind of saw it coming but this hit me way worse because there was no warning, there was no preparing, just one moment he's there and the next he isn't. That futility really hit home and made me wonder if one day my wife is going to wake up next to me and I won't be breathing. And what will happen to her or Xander without me around. This shook me to my core and I'm trying to use it for something positive but right now fear is beating me down.

I feel like I was a bad friend for not staying in touch with him up until the end but hindsight is a total bitch. He was a friend worth staying in touch with that never asked for anything but always was willing to give and help out. He was the type of guy that is rare to find and the world has lost a great asset.

Rest in piece of my friend, you deserve to not have to deal with any bullshit ever again!

Please help his family if you have a few bucks, even if it means leaving my Patreon to do it... I can't imagine how his wife and kiddo are handling this right now and I just want to make sure they don't have to deal with the financial bullshit while they grieve because I had to do that with my mom when she passed from cancer and it destroyed me and I've never recovered, I don't want them to go through the same. 

https://www.gofundme.com/gordon-austin-memorial-fund

PS: Please hug your family tight and tell them every singe day that you love them. Even if you just had a fight and are so pissed off your seeing red tell them that you still love them and hug them before you go to sleep. None of us are guaranteed to wake up the next day and I for one want my family to remember my last words as "I love you"... Please take this advise from me if it's the only advise you ever take...