To Azurisz

I haven't experienced much death in my life, and of those that have, pretty much only the death of my grandmother had an effect on me. I think I can happily and solemnly say that Azurisz is there as well now. I feel lost. Sad. Afraid? Confused. It's strange because he's not someone I knew in person, so this is new for me. We spoke regularly for years until one day I never heard back, which was so unlike him, and I knew something had to be wrong. Hell, even when something was wrong he'd fill me in, my DMs being therapy, and likewise his DMs could be mine.

I started getting to know Azurisz pretty well after a fun coincidence of running into one another repeatedly. In art posts. The one day I simply shouted 'Bird!' on his page, prompting him to message me on telegram and thank me for liking his character, saying he felt it was more meaningful and personal that way than to shout back. After that, we realized we attended some of the same streams on Picarto, and after that, we couldn't keep out of one-another's space! It has always made me smile to think about how crazy that was.

Azu and I got to be good friends after talking for a few years. It was one of those rare instances where you meet someone, but it feels like you've known eachother forever! We just hit it off so seemlessly, diving head first into getting to know one-another. He'd usually send me a random sticker of a screaching blue jay or start flirting like the horny bird he always seemed to be. He was so wonderful to talk to and always made a bad day suddenly not so bad. I would feel glee whenever I saw a notofication from him, pretty much always dropping what I was doing to reply. We had plans for art together and we were planning to meet up for the first time at Anthrocon this year! Once I we learned that we're only a short drive from one-another, we talked for a long time about finding a day to get together, but never found the chance comsidering our busy lifestyles. It breaks my heart now knowing that we never will. We always shared projects we were working on and bounced food ideas off one-another, talked about life stuff, and he's someone who really got you to think about things from a different perspective. I'm 12 years younger than Azurisz, and I always told him how wise and wonderful he was, which he naturally denied. But I learned a lot from him. He helped me understand a lot of things about myself mentally, being comfortable sexually and planning for the future, lectured and help me with adult things that no one ever really taught me, and just an incredible amount of advice that has absolutely changed my life! He was such an encouraging force of goodness and kindness. Harsh, yet caring, Azurisz spoke directly and with confidence, knowing when he could joke and when to be serious. I was really looking forward to sharing the good news of finally clearing my credit card debt with him!... I am distraught now knowing that he'll never understand how much he truly helped me. How much he genuinely changed my life. How much he really meant to me as a friend and sort of as a mentor. I don't think i'll ever be able to delete my telegram chat with him because of that; it's something I go back to read so often. It's simply not possible to express how much our interactions and friendship meant to me, and I only hope he went knowing that he helped make a real difference in people's lives. It always made me a but sad to know that our friendship likely wouldn't last forever, and one day we'd start to drift apart, but never did I ever think it'd be so abrupt. The world has lost a very beautiful person.

Needless to say, I love that bird to pieces, and Azurisz will be missed immensely. When we met, I planned to give him a big hug and tell him all of this over a meal. I guess now I can only share my feelings with the world, letting people know how much he meant to this dog.

"Remember, tomorrow is promised to no one." -Clint Eastwood