I remember several months ago stumbling across a thread here on the Giant Bomb forums that was asking people who they would miss the most if they were to leave Giant Bomb for greener pastures. The idea of death had nothing to do with it, it was just a very simple but very difficult question: If someone were to leave, how would you feel?

I thought long, hard and what I thought was very realistically on the question. I can't remember if I posted what I thought in that thread or not and I don't feel like going back through my forum history JUST to check, because the only relevant thought that occurred to me then is this: If Ryan Davis alone were to leave, I would be sad, but I think overall, my Giant Bomb experience would not be drastically effected.

I was wrong. It was so easy to say that in the moment. It was all just hypothetical. I wish this wasn't how I found out the reality of it.

There is a hole in my heart and a hole in this website that no human being will ever be able to fill. I've gone and blocked the one in my heart off and it's going to take a while before I fill it with enough tears to the point where I can bear to look at it again. For now, it's just surreal to me. I've spent the last day or two just kind of walking around in a daze. Occasionally I let out a tear or two, but it's still registering with me. I only now am capable of finding a way to turn my feelings into words.

I turn twenty two next Saturday, on July 20. And for the first time in my life, I am dealing with the death of a friend.

We never met, we never exchanged words, but Ryan Davis was part of my daily life in some way or another for three whole years. I felt like I knew him very well. I learned his likes, dislikes, grew to love and even emulate his sense of humor and unfiltered joy for goofy, inane shit. I have never really followed the Bombcast but the few times I listened, I didn't feel like I was listening to a podcast about video games, I felt like I had been invited to sit in on a great group of guys just shooting the shit. It felt like a privilege, and I realize now that a big part of why it felt like that was Ryan's ability to host that show the way he did. It extended to the live shows they do. Something about having him sitting in the "head seat" there made everything just feel okay. You could just feel how much fun he was having and he was letting you in in that, sharing it with you in a way only he could. I think he and I could have got along famously if we'd ever been given the chance to know one another.

I'm sorry, Mr. Davis. You were the best friend I never met. I'm sorry for thinking what I did. You ARE Giant Bomb, as much as everyone else that makes up this website is Giant Bomb. There is no one person that makes this website what it is. It is all of you. And without you, Mr. Davis, the Giant Bomb I know and love is going to be a different place.

I was wrong.