I need your help please. For personal reasons, specifically bereavement (i’ve lost one of my best friends due to cancer earlier this week) I am frankly not in a good place. 2021 has been challenging to say the least, first with my son and then my own health and now this. Honestly - the next couple of weeks are going to be very difficult and i’m conscious it coincides with the results of ParserComp.
I really feel like i’ve let my friend down. Maybe that’s daft, people are telling me it is, but I just feel like I could have done or said more, been more there for him especially over the last month. He went into hospice care (which sadly does tend to be a one-way road) during the COVID lockdown in the UK, so visiting was out, but I still feel like there’s more I could have done. Stupid things like I have no idea what he thought about the Mandalorian or WandaVision! Why did I never take the time to ask, it would have taken 2mins via WhatsApp. I think the funeral will be next week, his Mum will let me know. He was younger than me (i’m 42), we met at College and kept a good friendship since then.
Anyways… I need your help please. The response to ParserComp, the interest, the games, the voting, has been wonderful to see and what I don’t want to do is jeopardise this and end badly. The last thing I want to do, particularly in light of my feelings expressed above, is let people down - that would really impact me.
I would really appreciate it if someone could step in and take the reigns, allowing me to step away completely for the next few weeks (maybe months). There is the itch.io account (which is the crucial part), then the email account and the YouTube account. On August 1st the results will be in and just need posting, ideally with a bit of fanfare. I was originally planning to stream the results via YouTube, this isn’t necessary but was just my own intention.
If anyone is interested then please let me know, and thanks in advance.
Hey Adam, so sorry to hear about what you’re going through. Hang in there.
We’ll keep an eye on the ParserComp discussion here, and if necessary can make sure the results get posted and will help anyone who is able to take over with whatever they need.
Adam, I’m so sorry for your loss. I hope you’re coping.
If I weren’t an entrant in the comp I would offer to step in. I hope somebody can, but it’s not as important as you keeping it together. Even if nothing else happens, when the deadline arrives itch will close the judging and declare the results. You’ve already done an awesome thing for the IF community. Thanks again. I hope things go as smoothly as they can for you.
Thanks Robin. It’s hitting really hard, harder than I thought considering we knew it was going to happen - I guess in my head it was going to be years yet. About 10 days ago he was told it had accelerated and he had at the most a month, maybe just a few weeks, less than 5 days later he passed.
Appreciate the kind words. I’ve unticked the “hide results” box so as you rightly say it will publish automatically, but happy for someone to edit that back and manually announce; whatever works best for everyone.
Cancer is tough like that. It can take years or it can happen very suddenly. It sounds as though you and your friend shared many happy years of friendship, so please don’t dwell what might have been. You’ve clearly had a lot on your plate and you couldn’t have predicted it would happen so suddenly.
It sounds as though fos1 has things in hand as regards the competition. Take care of yourself.
I went ahead and added @fos1 to the Parsercomp group as an owner. (Likely not a big deal but basically it allows notification to approve requests to join the group as a participant.)
Just wanted to add my consolations to others’ – I had a similar loss last year, and while I know everyone’s different, I think that feeling that you should have done more is incredibly common, and something you’re likely to feel no matter how much or how little you were able to do. I’m sure your friend appreciated you very much, and I hope his memory is a blessing for you and his family.
And thanks for everything you’ve done to resurrect ParserComp – I think it’s brought a lot of joy and happiness to the community (it definitely has for me). Hobbies like IF can be really good for a bit of escapism and being able to work through grief, but there’s also times when you need to step back and create more space for yourself, so very glad @fos1 is stepping in to help.
So sorry for your loss, Adam! Take as much time as you need. I went through similar loss not so long ago, and I don’t think we can ever be ready for that.
And thank you for everything you have done for ParserComp.
Take care.
