Hey, guys. Uh, this is gonna be a hard journal for me to post, but I feel I need to tell all of you about it. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this, but I'll try to convey this as best as I can.

It seems we've lost one of our own, and I just found this out a little bit ago. It would seem that Kole Larson, aka  yami, has died. I am just shocked and saddened by this discovery.

Here's how I found out about Kole's passing. This is gonna be a bit wordy, so bear with me.

Over the past few days, I noticed that Kole hadn't been active here on FurAffinity, nor on DeviantArt. He's been pretty good about posting new submissions on a regular basis, and it seemed almost every day he would add new favorites to his collection. However, the last activity I saw out of him was late last week, and he had been silent ever since. It wasn't until perhaps Wednesday or Thursday that I realized he hadn't posted any new submissions, or gotten any new favorites. It got me to wondering what was going on, so I decided to email him and see if everything was okay. Come yesterday, still nothing. No new activity, and no reply to my email. This got me concerned. Something just felt...off about the whole thing.

Well, I had gotten a gut feeling that told me that maybe I should I look into the matter. I figured the best way to start was with a Google search, and I soon saw a couple of links mentioning an obituary for one Kole Larson. And I was like, "Wait, what?" I checked them both out, and they pretty much said the same thing: Kole Larson passed away on February 22, at age 43. I then just sat there in stunned silence for a moment. I remember thinking, "No, this can't be real! It's got to be a mistake!" Then, I looked at one of the pages more closely, noting his date of birth, his age, and where he died. I saw that his date of birth was listed as "September 21, 1981." That's when it hit me that Sept. 21 is what he stated as his birthday on his DeviantArt page. Then I noted his age: 43. I recalled a journal entry he made last year about how he was going to be turning 43 soon. Next I saw the location listed, mainly the state: Montana. I know that he's lived in Montana for as long as I've known him. That was when I started to think, "No, is Kole really dead?"
Here are a couple of links: https://www.tributearchive.com/obit.....04/kole-larson
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/n.....?pid=208614034

Anyway, after some more digging, I happened upon another link, this one from Glacier Peaks Casino, the place where Kole worked. It was a Facebook post, and it started with "Forever in our hearts, rest in peace, Kole Younger Larson." And below that, there was a picture of Kole. And this was when reality set in, my friend Kole was indeed gone from the world.
Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1214724233992090&id=100063635739449

I cannot tell you all how stunned and saddened I feel right now. Kole was one of my oldest friends on the Internet. I had known him for 20+ years, and now...*sigh*...I don't even know what to say right now. I'm still having trouble processing this whole thing. I guess I just need some time to sort things out.

Good-bye, Kole. Rest in peace, old friend.