Our friend is gone...

     It was about noon when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I thought it might have been another email from Hyundaiparts.com offering me another deal on the faded headlights I was looking to replace on my daughter's car. I was just thinking about the chicken curry and jasmine rice I had in the fridge when I saw a text message from William's wife, Sandra...

He passed away today at 2:45am.

I sat down at my desk in disbelief. I opened up Steam on my phone and began to text those who asked constantly about Lo Ping's condition. I knew this day was coming, you are just never really prepared for it. My friend was gone.

     It was about five years ago, freshly divorced and broke, I found myself setting up my laptop at a friend's house that would become my place of residence for the next year as I tried to piece together my living arrangements, financial obligations and child custody requirements. I had always had an affinity for video games that has been passed on to my children. But one game stood out in particular: Half-Life.  I was staring at the four installation disks of Half-Life 2 that I had ironically received as a gift from my now Ex-wife in Christmas of 2005. I had played thought and won the game two or three times, but the real
fun was in the multiplayer mode. That feeling of sending that green filing cabinet into someone's cranium with the grav-gun speaks volumes of the games playability when you are out of conventional weapons.
     After finally loading the game, I began looking at the multiplayer menus. It was 2012 and there were STILL people playing this game. I jumped from server to server, Loki's to Senior Slayers, Fozzy's to Anitalink's. There was one server where political discussions ruled the afternoons and killer music and comedy tracks ruled the nights... SoCal#1.
     I kept coming back to SoCal because of how welcoming its host Lo Ping aka Obama's Mama was to all who entered and proclaimed....

"It's a great day to be alive and be on SoCal#1!"

     William Adolph lived in Idyllwild, California. His love for gaming was only trumped by his love of his wife, Sandra. He enjoyed talking about the state of politics and theology. Well spoken, you could not help but listen to his stories that varied from World War I, to his love of writer's Gabriel Garcia Marquez's works, often reciting excerpts from Love in the Time of Cholera and 100 Years of Solitude.

     He would sing Mexican folk songs over the server while sending familiar green tables flying in your direction. If you were new and spoke over the headsets, he would kindly ask you to remove certain bodily fluids out of your mouth to enable you to speak clearly.  

     For many of us, SoCal was a place to go and have fun and be greeted graciously by an old friend, even if you didn't know him personally. His warm demeanor and playful spirit made him seem younger that he actually was, but his wealth of knowledge made him seem much older and wiser.

     William left me the keys to SoCal in December of 2017 so he could take care of a sarcoma (a type of tumor) in his intestines. After a lengthy operation, the doctors in San Diego were able to remove the 13 lb. tumor, but the surgery had left him weak and unable to walk, but thankfully alive. The road to recovery was going to be difficult. After much physical therapy and inevitable confinement to a wheelchair, William was back home again. 

     Speaking to William those days after he got home, he complained often about a headache that he could just not kick. Day in and day out with maddening pain in his head made it difficult to talk for long periods of time. Having reached his threshold, he went back to San Diego to get checked out.  After a few days of not hearing from him, I received a phone call where he shared the news that would alter his life from that moment on... Inoperable brain tumor. 

     Communicating with him would prove difficult from that point on. The combination of the drugs to control the pain and the degenerative nature of the tumor made understanding his words somewhat difficult. In one of our last conversations, he asked me to please keep the server alive. He expressed the joy it brought him and others and to keep it going. I intend to keep that promise.

     William let go in the wee hours of the morning today, June 28th, 2018. He will not be forgotten. His presence will live on in SoCal even though he is no longer here. The hole he leaves behind in the HL2DM community is immense. You know, William hated the word "community", but it is exactly what he created. 

Good-bye William aka Lo Ping aka Obama's Mama

Gone, but not forgotten.