memorial – My Life as Jan

The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt 2/17/2016 | Evasive Action

“What’s the most significant secret you’ve ever kept? Did the truth ever come out?”

If I told you that, I’d probably have to kill you. That’s the point of a secret, right?

Okay, in all seriousness, I am basically the Keeper of Secrets to everyone. Though most of the secrets that I have been keeping are no longer secrets, and the owners of said secrets have brought them to light, I still choose not to tell them. Personally, I don’t have secrets. I have one secret, that is mine, that I have not told anyone. I want to, but I honestly don’t know how, and if it would even make a difference in the effect that this secret has had on me.

But, I will tell you all a secret now that I am finally comfortable telling. Some of you may not understand, or even care, but it is important to me.

I have a friend, who is very near and dear to me. I won’t say his name, because I’m simply not sure if he would want me to. We met online, through Twitter, as well as the World of Warcraft community, and have been friends for years. My friend was married to a wonderful man for 4 years, and they played WoW together. On January 1st, 2013, my friend’s husband passed away suddenly, and unexpectedly, and he was absolutely devastated. There was nothing that I could do to comfort him in his time of need, as I was so far away, and being a friendly ear can only help so much.

During this time, I was also the host of a World of Warcraft podcast called Something Suggestive. While my show wasn’t big, I had made a bit of a name for myself in the community, and decided to go out on a limb, and talked to one of my favorite community managers about possibly having an NPC (non-playable character) added to the game in his husband’s memory. Blizzard is amazing when it comes to in-game memorials. After a little bit of back and forth between this community manager, as well as a game developer, we decided on a model, name, and location for his character.

In patch 5.2.0, the model, who was named and modeled after my friend’s late husband’s own character, was placed in the Seat of Knowledge, in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

Very few people know that I did this, and I kept it quiet for years, even after the YouTube videos, WowHead article, and blog posts came out, talking about the tribute. I asked my friend not to name me. I didn’t want credit, or attention. I wanted to help. I wanted to do whatever I could to do fix some part of this horrible tragedy.

In the following weeks, there were beautiful in-game tributes and meet-ups on several severs, and you can still find the videos on YouTube, years later. I went to a handful of these as well.

The way that the community rallied around our friend was incredible. Strangers, too, came from all corners of the world to pay their respects to our fellow community member.

It was beautiful. And I was so proud to be a part of the large group of people who reached out to show him that he was loved, and not alone.

And to my friend, if you are reading this right now, know that you are still so, so loved. ❤

And now you know my secret. Thanks for reading, friends.

Jan