Earlier this month, my dear friend Ceeb was rushed to the hospital. We would find out later that he had suffered a stroke. The reason? For the last several months his blood pressure had been spiking and slowly killing his kidney function. On the night he was finally taken to the hospital, he suffered a stroke from the blood pressure levels and ended up in a coma. Since that time the hospital struggled to bring him back... but after suffering another Bi-lateral stroke last week, the prognosis turned well...hopeless. Shortly after that, he was moved to a Hospice where he hung on up until today. I'm...gutted to tell you all that Ceeb has passed away.
Ceeb was...well, I'm sure divisive to many. Some didn't like his story content, and others didn't care for his very opinionate and offensive takes on things. I can recall multiple stories he had told me about saying the wrong thing, joking or not, that had led former friends to cut him off. But for me... despite not exactly having the same furry interest in common, nor the same sexuality, we were really close friends.
Ceeb was the first person to commission me, and essentially start my career in furry. Yes, even before my Rehab fic got me some notoriety, Ceeb was there not just paying me for my work, but helping me build confidence in it to some degree. But more than that, the longer we got to know each other, the closer we became. We were both curmudgeon types, who'd prattle off and on about our ongoing medical struggles, or just other general complaints and laugh about them. We'd tease each other at every little opportunity. But also we confided in each other honest feelings about a lot of stuff, things I haven't even shared with most of my other close friends. We knew we could be honest with one another without fear of losing each other's friendship, and that's a rare commodity in this day and age.
It was that relationship that made Ceeb more like a brother to me than anything else. Someone I grew to love dearly... and will now miss terribly...There's a lot I wish I could have done now... that I should have done. I told him so many times... begged him to go to the hospital when he'd tell me he passed blood. But inevitably he'd put off going, or just evade the medical topic for a while...I wish I had lived closer, that I had been able to drag him out of his home and take him to the hospital....but...I know you can't force a grown adult to do anything, and that was especially true for Ceeb. Of course, we'd find out after... this... that the poison from his kidneys was amplifying his paranoia about going to the hospital in the first place. Still...I can't help but blame myself... for not thinking of something, anything I could do from where I am to force him to finally go in.
Rob, I love you so much, and I'm going to miss you so badly. You were a better brother to me than my actual blood family. I only pray now that you're no longer suffering and... while I'm not the most religious guy, I hope you've found an afterlife paradise awaiting you. I sincerely hope we'll get to meet again someday...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVFcg4OuVRE
Goodbye, my brother...God, he'd probably tease me for even picking this video...what I wouldn't give to hear it...
Aaron ( A.K.A WastedTime)
I'll be doing the august Patreon roundup next week...This needed it's own time and space.
