Farewell to a friend

Well, it’s time for me write one of these blogs.

Yesterday, as of my writing this, I got a phone call that Erik, one of my gaming buddies, passed on.

We met at the 1999 GenCon, which was also my first GenCon. It was at one of the last scheduled games on Saturday, one that I got in by going through the catalog of games until I found one with an opening.

Erik was one of three people at that table who belonged to the same Dungeons and Dragon campaign. I somehow found out that they were close to me in Chicago and got an invite to come over and play. That led to me playing at least once a week with them for the rest of my time in Chicago.

Most of my gaming experiences with Erik involved Dungeons and Dragons, although he did play a mean game of Puerto Rico. Both as a player and a dungeon master, Erik inevitably went Lawful Evil, no matter what was written on the sheet.

In real life, though, Erik was a big sweetie. He liked to act like the token adult, rolling his eyes at everyone else’s shenanigans but he could caught up in the silly just like the rest of us. He’d call you out on your hypocrisy but always own up to his own.

I hadn’t seen him in person since I moved away from Chicago and now I know I’m not going to. I miss Erik and I’m really glad I got to know him.