#1 - Sept. 14, 2011, 10:11 p.m.
For my friend Shawn,
Two and a half years ago, my wife and I started playing World of Warcraft. It was a great way to waste some time, and we enjoyed playing together. We played pretty hardcore and basically have all the same stories about World of Warcraft as probably the next guy. We jumped guilds, did raids, leveled alts, and so on. Along the way, we meet a lot of people. Some were nice, some….well, not so much. One person in particular, we meet after about 3 or 4 months of playing was named Shawn (a.k.a. Drakenbol) on the Mug’Thol server. Through vent and chatting endless hours in guild we became pretty good friends. After about a year, me and my wife got pretty sick of all the BS that is standard in pretty much any on-line game (you know what I’m talking about), and we decided to quit. While we weren’t playing we still kept in contact with some of our World of Warcraft buddies over the phone and on-line, and Shawn was one of these people. In August of 2010 my wife was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer. This is a very, very aggressive cancer, and my wife and I, both only 33, were simply devastated. To help us get through the chemo, the surgeries and the radiation, we decided to start playing World of Warcraft again. My wife started her chemo and quickly became very sick. I remember her hair falling out. The night I shaved her head, we did a raid right after. I think that raid was the only thing that kept her from having a nervous breakdown then and there. World of Warcraft helped us get through those first couple months and helped keep our minds off how sick Holly was getting. One person stuck with us throughout the game. No matter what happened in the guild, or drama in a dungeon or raid, Shawn was right there, supporting us. He always made sure to talk to Holly and find out how she was doing. Shawn could always cheer up Holly. Maybe it was his optimism, or maybe it was the funny southern accent and all those silly southern sayings he’d spout off in vent, but he always managed to make Holly smile. In February of this year, we had finally had enough of the game. Frankly most of our old friends had stopped playing and were long gone, and the ones that were still playing turned out to be pretty rotten people in the end. We deleted our copies on our computers and vowed to never play again. We only kept in contact with a few of our friends and it was seldom. I talked to Shawn a couple of times over the following couple of months, but it was small talk at best.
Around the time we quit playing wow; my wife was finishing up her chemo, and had undergone a bilateral mastectomy and was pronounced clear of cancer in early March. Time went on and we continued our lives till a couple weeks ago. My wife was a home one day and putting something away in a cabinet and suffered a fall off a stool. She had hit her head pretty hard and her right side of her body went numb and he could barely move her leg. We took her to the ER and after 8 hours of scans and tests, a doctor walked in and told us that the cancer had returned to her brain. She had a large tumor in her parietal lobe and a second smaller one in her cerebellum. Our world stopped that moment and came crashing down. I can’t begin to tell you how serious this is. The fear I felt her, our 9 year old little girl, and myself was simply indescribable. My wife underwent brain surgery immediately which unfortunately left her paralyzed on her right side. Following this, I spent hours at her bedside, comforting her. And I was the only one. Her family decided that they “couldn’t deal with it” and never called or came to see her. And only one of her so called “friends” ever visited. She was suffering and felt very alone in the world. Through texts and calls I let everyone I knew what the situation was and what was going on. I have to say; I made a lot of calls those first few days. One of those calls was to Shawn. I knew he cared and would be upset, but I never expected what came next. I talked to him and he said he had to call my wife. An hour later he called me back in tears and said “I’ll be up there Friday to help!” Well, I live in Detroit Michigan and he lived in Memphis Tennessee. I was shocked. Here was basically a guy that was little more than a stranger who was willing to travel 600 miles just to help someone out. I honestly thought he was BS’ing me, but he wasn’t.
On Friday a big white truck from Tennessee pulled up in my driveway and a big southern guy stepped out. I shook his hand and he gave me a hug. Over the next four days, he helped me clean the house and take care of my daughter. He stayed at the hospital and sat with my wife when I couldn’t. He held her hand when she was scared. When she in physical therapy, he cheered her on and told her she could do it! He made my daughter laugh and tried to cheer her up. He sat in my living room and listened, while I told him how scared I was. He went and brought my wife food in the hospital. He drove me to and from places because I was too tired to drive. He helped out so I could take a break, relax, have a drink, and take my mind off of everything that had been going on. When we were at our darkest points in our lives, there was “Ole Drakenbol” there to help us. Out of all the people in the world that I thought I would help us, after all the people that had abandoned us, there was this stranger there with this monumental act of selfless kindness willing to help out.
Sometimes, people don’t realize how profoundly they can impact other’s lives. And I don’t think this man will ever understand how much he changed ours. He showed us that there really are people that truly care and who can be genuinely, genuinely kind to others. Out of the least likely of places, a video game, I meet a man I will consider more than a friend, but a brother to me and an angel to my wife.
I often remember while playing World of Warcraft that “friendships” would come and go in the game, and people would often justify their actions by simply saying “don’t take it personal, it’s just a game”. But people do invest their feelings into this game. And this is one example of a person who invested his emotions into a game and ended up helping out some strangers very deeply.
I still don’t play wow, and I don’t plan on returning to the game anytime soon. And I thank Blizzard for giving me enough time on my account to just post this. But if I ever return, it won’t be because of an expansion, or new content. It will be so I can spend more time with this very special individual.
So, in closing, if you happen to be on the Mug’thol server and see an orc hunter named Drakenbol, or a poorly geared Death Knight named Drane, salute him. Give him the respect that he deserves. Shake his hand, give him a hug, and know that this man has done more for me, my wife, and my daughter then he ever could imagine. He’s not the greatest player ever, but he is one of the greatest guys I have ever known.
Thanks buddy,
-Jay-
