Today, for the first time in my 35 years of being on this planet, I found out that one of my friends had passed away suddenly due to a Heart Attack. While he lived three states away and I only got to talk with him a few times a year; it's still a lot to process.

We weren't extremely close, (one of those "I wish we were closer") but distance was a factor with the fact we both led very busy social lives. He still considered me close enough to be one out of 348 people to actively follow on Twitter and occasionally talk to me about Photography which he shared a passing interest in. I knew him mostly through being Staff at Midwest Furfest, where he was a dedicated staff member for as long as I knew him (including the Chairman at one point).

What makes this even harder is he is the first of my "Family that I choose" to pass away... which puts in the back of my mind "Okay who is next...". Sure I've lost Biological Family before, and a few of them it was very hard as well; but this is... different. I hold my friends in a lot of ways on a different level then my family, because they are willing to accept me, a complete stranger, with no obligation to spend time out of their lives to make a bond with.

A little over a year ago, he invited me to a private gathering of friends that he and his Husband put on. There were awkward times yes as I didn't know everyone there, but it was nice to feel accepted into another Family, even if that family was over 350 miles away.

The most heartbreaking thing is I did think about this gathering from two years back mere hours before I found out he had passed away this afternoon. Being the photographer I am, I offered my services to take photos of that event for the time I was there. I have several hundred photos that I dare not look through till I am a little stronger.

I was re-invited this year but was unable to make it because of other plans locally with other friends and my GF. It was a hard choice to make, and part of me wishes I would have made the other choice. Part of me also knows then the news would have been just that much harder...

I saw him in person a few weeks later from that when I decided to go to Chicago for the first MFF staff meeting; and although we talked very breifly I remember that conversation in crisp detail. I had no idea that last minute decision to go down would have a much deeper meaning to me just a few months later.

RIP Takaza. 140 characters on Twitter is not enough to express the loss Myself and a lot of others felt today. Even all the words in this journal cannot describe what its like to loose a Friend.