It was a totally surreal feeling when I loaded up Matt Rorie's post yesterday. I woke up late and decided to do my daily internet rounds, first check Facebook to see how my friends back home were doing, then maybe check out the front page of Reddit. But when I scrolled down to a Giantbomb post on Facebook about the loss of Ryan, I immediately clicked on it, hoping to see that it was just a poorly worded story making fun of married life. But it became clear that this story would completely halt my daily rituals.

The only person close to me that follows Giantbomb is my brother, and he was on baby duty the night before, so i didn't want to wake him. But I needed to hear other peoples' feelings on this, I needed a community. So I went to twitter first, not knowing what to expect. Almost every person I follow knew Ryan, and it was tragic to see the posts. Being the chicken I am, I couldnt tweet any sympathies to the people that were closest to him, I did not feel like it was my place. Looking back I would have definitely offered words of encouragement to his wife and the Bomb crew, but I was too afraid of somehow saying the wrong thing or seeming too nosy. So I went to the community forums and soon found the thanksryan Twitch stream. This was just the place I had been looking for, fans and the community remembering Ryan through watching some dumb shit with him in it on the internet.

It was amazing to see how many people were truly touched by this great man. The people in the stream, and on most parts of the internet came out with stories of how they felt Ryan was a friend. One person in the stream described the feeling of his loss as the feeling of losing an Uncle, which was exactly how it felt to me. Not just a random Uncle though, but that cool Uncle that you dont really know until you turn 13, and then suddenly he is the most fascinating member of the family to you, and becomes even more so when you get older.

The world lost an incredible man last week, and he will leave an empty hole in all our hearts. Many of us had never even seen him in person, but I'm sure many of us felt close to him through listening to him every week, reading his tweets, and seeing him play crappy Kinect games with his friends. He will truly be missed, and my heart goes out to his friends and family.

Thanks Ryan, you kept me happy through troubled and already cheerful times.