Jeff
I’ve been thinking lately about my old buddy Jeff. He died of cancer some years ago. I can’t recall when. I feel like I wasn’t the best friend to him when he was alive. I don’t remember the anniversary of his birth, but I remember clearly what he looks like. I can’t remember the day we met but I do remember some parts of it.
If I’m remembering correctly, we met in Terrokar Forest playing the latest World of Warcraft expansion; The Burning Crusade. I was a Mage and he was a Warlock. We immediately became friends and started playing together in WoW every day and practically every hour of the day. I recall his girlfriend would say it was more like Jeff and I were the couple which how much time we would spend together and talk about each other. We leveled up together, ran dungeons together, raided with one another, and even PvP’d in the Battlegrounds and Arena.
We finally met in real life on a Vegas trip my father got me for my twenty first anniversary of my birth. Jeff was also with his girlfriend, Jodi, at the time who I also became friends with and am still friends with to this day, though we rarely talk about Jeff since he’s passed and she’s moved on and married. He mentioned that I looked different than I sounded which I thought was funny. I don’t even really remember what we did in Vegas. I know we visited the New York New York area and probably had some drinks. Later on after he and Jodi broke up, he started talking to the best friend of my girlfriend at the time. Then he came and visited me. It’s kind of funny because he called out that my then girlfriend and I were constantly fighting and didn’t fit well together, but at the same time he was kind of doing the same but you know how it’s easier to see it in others than yourself. Anyway, they didn’t last long and my relationship lasted too long but it was a good learning experience.
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When we stopped playing WoW that seemed to be when the friendship was at it’s weakest. We could never find another game we liked playing together, or more so, I supposed it was I who couldn’t stay interested in more than one game at a time. Though there were quite a few games I enjoyed and would play occasionally and he would find issues with the games. I really enjoyed this game called Killing Floor but he was upset there wasn’t a crosshair and you had to use iron sights for most of the guns in the game. We’d always get right back together when ever a new WoW expansion would come out and he’d rope me back in and it was like we never stopped but for some reason when we weren’t playing WoW we just really didn’t talk much. It’s mostly my fault I assume as I am horrible with keeping in touch with people and often won’t talk to even family members for years at a time.
Back to WoW for a second, we shared account information so we could help each other out and farm each other stuff, which inevitably led to pranking. I believe it started with him leaving me naked hundreds of meters in the sky above Shattrath City by dismounting and Alt+F4'ing immediately so when I logged in I’d be falling to my death. I believe my response was to leave him in the middle of the ocean with no hearthstone to get back home so he’d have to swim and walk all the way back to town. They were really fun times when we used to play games together.
I don’t remember what prompted it but he started learning how to make Electronic Dance Music and at the time I wasn’t really into it so I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it but he started playing at clubs and making money so he had to have been at least decent at it. I wasn’t really into music until much later in life, only the last few years have I really been getting into music and trying to make my own. I really wish I could have collaborated with Jeff before he died. I think he could have helped me get started and we could have made a lot of really cool music together. I think maybe that’s what we would have been doing after WoW if he was still alive today. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. I know that now looking back I have a lot more respect for my old friend and the way he forged his own path doing what he loved. I really admire him for that. Often times I feel like a pretty bad friend who let him down. I don’t think I was there enough for him and I didn’t even know he had cancer until it was too late. I didn’t get to say that final goodbye to my best friend. I’m not sure if I’ll have another friend like Jeff in the future and I don’t know if that’s because it would be too hard to find or that I’d be too scared to lose another Jeff.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this I have just been thinking about Jeff lately and wanted to get it out. Not many people I know now knew him, or knew him the way I knew him, so I’m just talking to myself on the internet. I miss you and I love you, Jeff. I’m sorry you had to leave us so soon. I hope it’s peaceful and pain free where you are, and your beats are banging.
