3699 replies to this topic

[Hundley]

If you guys ever get the time it would be really cool if you could come on and tell us a few things about steel and what he was going through, if its not too tough on you that is. Might help bring some closure for some people.

i have a feeling this is the sort of thing you don't really want to know. nobody is in a good mental shape towards the end. they'd always want you to remember how they were in their prime

[Barack Obama]

If you guys ever get the time it would be really cool if you could come on and tell us a few things about steel and what he was going through, if its not too tough on you that is. Might help bring some closure for some people.

according to his livejournal and posts here, he was having seizures and all kinds of complications due to all the stuff that was going on in his brain(he was taking some pretty brutal meds and had huge tumors removed from his brain). Arm going floppy/numb, generally immobile, and he just couldn't think straight. I imagine that going into hospice he must have been in worse condition than when he was in the hospital and was pretty sedated to prevent further suffering.

correct me if I'm wrong, but this is pretty standard for people going home on hospice and was the case for my aunt who passed away from brain cancer.

Hundley is right, it's not the condition you want to remember someone by.

[headphonics]

you're right, but even if we're not told how he was towards the end (sredni already said he was delirious; that tells me enough for me to know i don't want to hear more), i'd at least like to know how he was towards the end of his mentally functioning days.  i haven't spoken to steel in months, and we only have a handful of forum posts to go by for the past few months.  i've basically been out of the loop since july.  i don't need to know how he spent his october, because i'm sure it wouldn't be any kind of comfort, but knowing how he spent his july through september would be nice, since those were the last days he was STEEL as we knew him.  i mean, christ, i don't even really know how he died.  i'm not saying go into explicit detail about how much his condition degenerated in the last few weeks, but i feel like there's still a lot of non-morbid stuff we don't know.

[Serenity]

Oh wow... i haven't been posting on here much but i've been lurking a fair bit and following this thread. I always hoped it would all just be a happy ever after ending but I guess life isn't like that sometimes. I never really knew him other than reading his posts but i admired him so much for his strength throughout this.
He has had such an impact on so many people. I am very sorry to hear that so many have lost an amazing friend.

R.I.P.

[Corfaisus]

I can't say that I knew Steel, or even held a conversation with him... but just to find out of his passing, and reading over what others have said about him and his impact on their lives... God, I couldn't help but cry. I just... I don't know anymore. I agree, he really seemed like the kind of guy who would have the strength to make it through, but... damn. I believe the thing that truly brought me to tears was the quoted conversation on Feb 16th, 2007.

[Sredni Vashtar]

i have a feeling this is the sort of thing you don't really want to know. nobody is in a good mental shape towards the end. they'd always want you to remember how they were in their prime

this is very true. the reason I quit giving updates for a while there is because the last time I saw him (in the hospital), he was in a very painful state. Although I couldn't be there at the end, I heard from his other good friends that it was peaceful.

Honestly, for me, the happiness I feel because he isn't in pain anymore overshadows the sadness from his passing away. The only real sorrow I feel is for his family, and for the people whose lives he would have changed.

[Evil Bob]

Have been gone for awhile due to moving and no internet, and just saw the news for the first time, and it still hasn't really sunk in yet.  It just doesn't seem right for something like this to happen to someone like him, while he was still so young.

I feel so much sorrow for his family now.  3 years ago my father passed from cancer, and the last time I saw him was after driving 2 hours to the hospital just in time to see him pass on, the vision of this is still burned in my mind, and it feels so horrible to know that something similar is going on with his family.

I've never known him outside of words on an internet forum, yet I'm openly crying in a public library upon hearing the news.

RIP Steel.

[alexjones]

well as you can see from my post count i'm not very active here, but today i sat down and read through the entire topic and I have to say what happened to steel was very cruel, I think it would have been more merciful if he had jsut been told he had terminal cancer and that was it but instead he actually thought he was free of the cancer at one point, to think you are cured of cancer and for it to come back is jsut cruel beyond words, I hardly knew steel, the only contact I ever had with him was complanining about a thread he made once but I can see he was a very respected member of this community and at least his suffering has ended and he is at peace now.

[maladroithim]

I just found out.

I always reminisce about all of the great conversations I had with all of the guys on GamingW when it was more active.  Typically, Steel was humiliating me and generally being brilliant in most of them.  I just can't believe he's actually gone.

[Bisse]

Shite.

And somehow I just kept believing he would make it through this whole thing. Right now all that's going through my head is how completely pointless this is, i'm just so bloody angry that he had to die from the most pointless fucking disease ever. It's amazing that a guy you barely even spoke to can make you feel this much. What a fucking character.

But holy fuck his mother must be completely devastated. I don't even want to imagine what it must feel like to lose your family to the most pointless fucking disease on this planet. Fuck if there was anything I could say or do, other than feel bad...

Rest in peace, Steel. You don't deserve to go like this.

[GaZZwa]

Shepperd told me this last week and I really didnt know what to say. It´s just so unfair, so horrible. I can´t even think of anything to say now, except that, when everybody raised that money for him, I felt incredibly proud of this community. I thought that was a really amazing thing.

[im_so_tired]

i just found a picture hidden in some folder of steels head attached to an ostrich body.
:/

[ase]

yeah, i made that... it was some old topic where we were attaching people's pictures to animals. oh yeah it was an impeal topic

[Illness Illusion]

i had to come see what was going on when ug/smoothy told me steel was gone (so many name changes - i used to be gamewolf252 if its more familiar to anyone). there's too much to say and my keyboard is broken.

thanks for a lot of things steel.

edit: did i mention i took a whole class on postmodernism because of you

[Brad]

I don't know if anyone else really realized but like.. the whole "GW is Dead" thing really does shed it's light here as I really did expect a lot more response than this.... It's STEEL! He basically IS gw,,,, I sure there are still some who don't know of his passing and it really saddens me.

[maladroithim]

I just spent a few minutes reading old articles Steel wrote a year or two ago when he was still healthy . . . it's really got me down. He was just a random guy on a forum that I happened to like, and not a personal friend. But this is really fucking tragic.

[Death Gulp]

Brad I know exactly how you feel

[Jester]

I don't know if anyone else really realized but like.. the whole "GW is Dead" thing really does shed it's light here as I really did expect a lot more response than this.... It's STEEL! He basically IS gw,,,, I sure there are still some who don't know of his passing and it really saddens me.

I think most people are afraid to do anything because it won't be good enough? Idk, if you had some kind of art tribute I'd be afraid to take part, at any rate.

Unless you just mean posts in this topic (and the steel tribute topic) in which case I think we did a lot - GW really doesn't have the vast userbase it used to, and I'm pretty sure everyone who is still active here has at least viewed the topic(s), if not posted in them.

As for not posting in them, it's very hard to find the right words, especially for those (ie: me) who didn't know him too well, on a personal level.

[Bandito]

I didn't know Steel died. I didn't know him personally but I read his posts and man it's kind of sad to see someone like him go. R.I.P. good man.

[squonk]

This is Steve, one of Steel's friends, and his family asked me to look through his computer to see if I could find anything helpful.  I know that some of you who knew him well were looking for a message that he might've sent, knowing what was up, and as far as I can tell, he wrote this to be sent if something went south.

Forgive me if this is a repost, but it's one of the most beautiful things that I've ever read, and I hope that it helps you out during these times.

Here goes:

Okay, first of all, let me get the technical stuff out of the way. The surgery is on the 29th. It's expected to last anywhere from 3 to 6 hours. On hearing what happened, I've instructed my sister to call four people; Manan, Jon, Alex Reher, and Steve. Aside from being my closest friends, almost like brothers, they also have contacts with different groups of people and will probably let the rest of you know what happened. If you don't hear from them or don't know them, I'll attempt to post something on Facebook when I can. However I know if things go well, they'll be forcing me to do breathing tests and walk up and down the hall a lot to prevent pneumonia since I have a history of it now. So if you don't know by Halloween, expect that something has gone wrong.

For those of you who don't know; the chemo worked as well as it could, shrinking the tumor a few centimeters on all three axes (this may not seem like much, but think of volume and the difference between a 1 cm cube and a 2 cm cube). It's also apparently killed the active cancer, although we can't know for sure yet. This type of cancer however, comes with a teratoma, a type of tumor that is unaffected by chemotherapy. Teratomas can be benign; however they most often just reactivate the cancer later down the road. Thus, surgery is needed to remove it.

The reason I'm writing this is not just because I'm afraid of the surgery; I've got a 95% chance of going through the surgery with no complications, and that remaining 5% isn't DEATH (most of it is post op pneumonia), but yes, I'm still afraid considering I never had a surgery before. But aside from this, if the removed mass shows active cancer still, I may have to undergo more dangerous and harsh chemotherapy. From this round already, I've had severe neuropathy in two of my fingers on both hands; another round of chemo might finish them off. Worst of all is the 50 to 60% cure rate has never changed; that means there's a 50 to 40% chance that even if I make it through this, it'll come back. If it does come back, I might not make it again. There was also a large blood clot in my neck that could have killed me; something tells me that wasn't the only close call I'll be having.

And most of all, I saw my dad slowly die from pancreatic cancer, and although I was too young to know it then, I can remember now how his eyes had some despair that he could not tell me all the things he wanted to tell me. My mom said the only time she saw him cry was not on learning his parents's death, or on knowing about his coming death, but knowing that he would not see us grow up, would not be there to guide us and tell us and when his son got older, talk about books and falling in love and yelling at him and being disappointed in him and all that stuff that those of you with fathers take for granted (I hope that does not sound too bitter; to paraphrase something I read once, I do not hate you because you have a better life, I only wish that I did as well).

That alone wouldn't have convinced me to write this whole thing if it weren't for a quote I read from Bun B, half of famous Southern rap duo UGK. His friend Pimp C had died, and Bun B said the following: “And I loved him, and he loved me, and we're never ashamed to say it. And I know we're in the era of "pause" and "no homo" and all that, and that's all fine and dandy, but if you really love your homie, don't feel like you can't tell him you love him. Who gives a fuck how somebody take it. Because when things happen, you're going to wish you had said it. You're going to wish you said it louder.”

I remember reading an article about the hidden costs of masculinity where the author made a successful argument, I thought, in how men cannot express how they feel about other men. Women tell each other their love almost every day. And I thought, how fucking solid of Bun B to do that. Men pride ourselves on remaining stoic and unemotional, but fuck, it's not right that I can see it on my brother's face and he can see it on mine, but it goes unsaid.

So here's the truth, if I die tomorrow in surgery or in a week from pneumonia or in three months from a remission gone wrong. Here is the truth.

Too much of life, I think, is dealt with in passivity. We do not celebrate connectedness but retreat behind our barriers. We argue over paying taxes while our brothers and sisters bleed in the street. We look pretty so other people will decide if we're worth their time, but who the fuck decided someone wasn't? We let hatred and fear move us more than love, and I can't help but remember Mookie's bitter words when Sal complains about his broken window in Do The Right Thing: fuck your window, Radio Raheem is dead. So if I die, this is my last message to you; just simple life is easy. Making a good life is the hard part. Never be contented. Never think your work is done. Never do anything by half. If you love, don't do that stupid love where all you do is wonder whether he or she is thinking about you and what your kids will look like and if he or she will still fuck you just as good in twenty years as they do now. Love so that if they ask you to jump you jump, you don't even ask how high. Love so that it fucking hurts. When you do something, do the fucker, do it so it jumps up and ties itself into a knot when it sees you coming. And when you see evil, when you see something despicable, never forget how to hate. Hate till blood runs out of your eyes if you have to. Never do it by half. Never give in. If you're like me, they'll be hard nights, hard times, and you may wonder if it's worth it but one day it will be and you'll be refilled like it was fucking manna from heaven. To quote Henry Rollins, “scar tissue is stronge than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.” That's what I know of life, and that's all I can tell you about its meaning. Never forget fire.

And beyond that. If I die. It'll always be too late for me to say all I need to say. To tell you about the beauty of the blue light of dawn, to tell you that heaven is a spot outside of a village in India with alabaster trees and a muddy brown pond with fish nipping at the surface, of pain so strong it converts you from atheist to believer to atheist, it convinces you to kill anything you have just to make it go away. I cannot tell you everything that I have found powerful in this life. But I can tell you just a little, and under the assumption that I might die, please allow me this one indulgence. The night air is always better than the day; it's like something's cracking open all around you all the time. If you get far enough away from the city, the stars will ruin you. You'll look up, and they'll fucking destroy you, how many there are. You don't even get that whole “I'm so small” feeling; you just realize how vast it is. Part of what makes love great is how incredibly weak it is. Think of all that can break it; distance, boredom, curiousity. If you can nurse it, watch it grow, if you can keep love going without losing yourself in it, you've got a little miracle and anyone who looks at you will be able to tell. Somewhere in the world someone is waiting for you and already loves you. You may never meet them, but the fact that they exist makes all the difference. Don't just accept your flaws; actively correct them. If you aren't smart, become smart. If you're mean, grow some decency. There is no excuse for complacency or boredom. Respect your elders, but know they can be and often are just wrong. Sylvia from Sylvia's Pizza is a nice, heavily accented, Italian man who loves his business and loves his regular customers. It's always better to support a local place than a chain because as an amateur chef I can tell you that if you love who you cook for, you make better food. Try not to laugh at someone, ever. Even hating them has a modicum of respect; laughing at someone only serves to demean you both. There are still bad people out there. You will fall in love with them sometimes. Do not assume you can change anyone.

As for me; I'm not ready to die. I don't want to. I'll go into this surgery prepared to survive. I'll fight cancer with every last bit of strength I've got. You can shoot me and I'll keep going. But if I do, do not mourn me. I have had a decent life so far. I'm only 22 and I've already gotten so high I've felt the rhythm of the universe around me. I've gotten so drunk in a parking lot that I started singing for no reason. I've known pain, both emotional and physical, that most people don't know till much further in life. I've fallen in love and had my heart broken. I've seen the inside of a jail cell. I beat someone up once to protect a friend, even though I was outnumbered and about five years old. I have done both great and awful things in my life. I have cried tears for dead people I never knew, and I have broken doors in rage over people I cannot save. I have lived a life. I hope I get to keep on living. I hope I can fall in love again and this time make it work. I hope I can adopt a child. I hope I can see my friends get married. I hope I can make an album. I hope I can learn to write, and write well. I hope I can save an innocent man from dying. I hope I can live.

But if I don't, your life still goes on. There are innocent men who will still die if no one saves them. There are weddings and parties to attend that will be missing one guest. There's a beautiful girl reading a book somewhere or about to go to sleep who might suddenly shiver, and not understand why. There are still children who need families. Never stay content unless you've earned it. You have no greater purpose in life than to help others, no matter how small an effort you can exert.

And don't forget I love you.