July 8th was ordinary. I woke up, got some food, and loaded up Giant Bomb. Nothing. It was early, so of course there was nothing. A tweet from Alex caught my eye, something about today going to be hard. Well, ok, I guess they are coming off an extra long weekend. Something about it still seemed off. Whatever! I decided to watch a movie and found one on Netflix that I've wanted to see for some time: Strange Days.

Two hours later I loaded up Giant Bomb again, the weird new age music from the end credits still playing on my headphones, and I see "Ryan Davis, 1979-2013". Wait, what? "Giant Bomb has suffered a profound loss". Uhhhhhh.

I opened the article and read the first line, "Ryan Davis passed away on July 3rd". I understood the words, I mean I can fucking read, but that sentence made zero sense to me. Sure, the thought has crossed my mind, everyone dies at some point. What's gonna happen when my parents die, when my friends die, when the dude I listen to every day curse about video games on the internet dies. But seriously, what the hell. It's a joke. Some inside thing. Maybe I missed a tweet or a stream.

"Many of you know that Ryan was recently married. In the face of this awfulness..." hah! There it is! Ryan got married so har har it's like he died. I looked back to the first line again and then the title before it really started to sink in. Dissonance followed. Ryan can't be dead, he just got married, he's the host, he's the guy. This is the week he comes back and then Steam sales and then new games and then new fucking consoles and then game of the year and then E3 and then, you know. Everything.

I just slouched in my chair and spent the rest of the day reading comments, blogs, articles, tweets. I didn't know what to say. My head was aching and my stomach felt like it was folding in on itself. No one I care about has ever died before, and I guess I did care about Ryan. It seems strange, and I've read so many people say the same. Ryan didn't know me. We never met, never communicated on twitter, I never sent an e-mail to the Bombcast, but it's hard to imagine he wasn't what he seemed to be.

Way back in the Gamespot days, I didn't know about these people. I watched them because holy shit it's people talking about video games on this internet thing. They were entertaining, engaging enough, and their genuine enthusiasm was apparent. But I certainly didn't think I knew them more than any other stranger on a screen.

But then one day I saw something new. It was Carrie Gouskos' last day, and as she was saying goodbye her voice trailed off and she started to cry. The stream quickly changed to another shot, but before it did Ryan suddenly grabbed her for a hug. They way he did it really caught me off guard. Well I was already off guard knowing it was Carrie's last day, but he did it so quickly, like he didn't even think about it.

He saw his friend was sad and just reacted. Writing it out, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but it really stuck with me. Even up until this weekend it crossed my mind. I had never seen an adult act that way. It was just real honest goodness. I saw that and thought, alright, these are some goodpeople. So I started hanging around Gamespot more, less because I liked games and more to see what the staff would get up to.

Cut to today, and Ryan's dead. Giant Bomb only showed me more of what kind of guy he was. Sure, the freedom here did allow for the more saucy side of him to roam and ravage, but none of that ever really took away from what I saw years ago and since. Dude was just a good human being. It sucks that the world has lost one of those.

Jeff, is also a good human being. Vinny, Brad, Drew, everyone else. And they're still here. People die. That's all the sense there is to it. Everyone's gonna get there eventually. Until then, you live. You didn't need to. You could have easily not existed. Earth could have happened to be a bit colder or hotter and be another (presumably) barren rock, drifting through the cosmos, just another less interesting part of all there is. Ramble, ramble, the meaning of life.

I dunno. Ryan Davis is dead. I'm gonna miss him.

Let's keep having fun.

I think that's the best way you can honor someone's memory and it's how I try to handle all deaths I encounter since my parents'. Take that one thing you loved most about their personality and try to make it a part of your own. They live on through you then.