In Loving Memory of Jonathan Glyer

My friend Jonathan Glyer was killed Friday January 29th. From the amazing letter his wife Sarah wrote, I know he was smiling that day. I know it was almost immediate and I know he was killed doing what he loved.

If you’ll allow it, I want to tell you about Jon. About who he was in my life and why I’ll miss him so very much.

Jon was the main healer in my Warcraft raiding group. He was, without a doubt, the best healer I’ve ever seen in action. He was an officer in The Grey Order, a member of the Borked cast and someone I spoke to almost every day, even if only for five minutes.

He was a friend, a co-hort, a political sparring partner, a confidante and a mischievous little snot. We laughed together, we fought and we made up and, when it was all said and done, we’d log on the next day, hop into vent and do it all again.

He loved his Seattle Sounders, trying to figure out how to machine a piece of metal to a millimeter’s perfection, his cat Miles, his wife Sarah’s cooking (oh, he loved her cooking and he loved sharing how good her cooking was with all of us over Vent – guaranteeing a volley of groans and jealous whimpers as he munched happily).

He was best friends with David Eagle and Jonathan Mabe.

Which is what makes this so very hard.

Jon was so much a part of people’s lives. He touched so many people. He was so full of life and so full of laughter. Every one I know who has remarked on him has talked about not knowing how to fill the space his passing has left behind.

The ripples are evident. Our raiding team is…fractured. Our guild in shock. So many people have left messages for Sarah and Jon, for his friends, his family, letting them know just what Jon meant to them and just how much he’ll be missed.

This is a man I spoke to for the better part of a year. A man who I only had the pleasure of hugging twice in my life, but who was a very real part of my life and my heart.

A man I would definitely have traded places with if I thought it would mean he could be back here and filling the space for those around him. The space that, for so many, can’t be filled.

But I know what he’d say.

He’d make a rude noise and tell me that I was just being silly. That the space I’d leave behind would be just as big and that when you gotta go, you gotta go and quit bein’ all emo. He’d likely start munching a cookie and then go on about how he had them and how good they were and, before long, we’d be laughing together and the conversation would be forgotten.

It’s his laugh I’ve been hearing for the last two days.

His laugh and, would you believe, he and I echoing Rotface at the start of the fight in ICC. The two of us squealing “Wheeeeeeee!” as Jon Mabe calmly chuckles and Dave exclaims “Wil Wheaton!” and in we go to die again like a bunch of mad fools.

It’s not that I don’t feel the pain. I feel the loss. I see the people around me affected and I want to get on a plane and look his wife in the eye and let her know just how much I loved her husband – and how so much of what I loved about him was created by his love of her.

Jonathan Glyer was an amazing human being. He was my friend. And now he’s my Angel.

I feel blessed to have an Angel like Jon.

Especially one with a laugh like his.