RIP to my grandfather, who passed away today on November 17, 2015. He had been in and out of the hospital for the past two weeks, so I was prepared for this five, six, seven—probably even as many as ten days ago. He was 86, which is obviously a very full life, so it wasn’t a surprise that his time had come. 1929 to 2015: all things considered, a pretty long stay on this planet.

Normally I wouldn’t mention this sort of thing here, but he was one of the first seven people who knew that I was making Dreamblazers. It’s not that I was the closest with him, but he knew me well enough to guess.

What do I mean by that? When I first quit my job, several family members naturally found out, but I didn’t mention exactly what I was doing; I just said I was working on a certain project and that I’d tell them more when it was a little closer to completion.

I’m a pretty private person and didn’t want to be bothered with questions and discussions from relatives who, however well-meaning they might be, don’t know anything about games and don’t know all that much about computers. To this day, some family members still don’t know what I’m doing. But my grandfather guessed correctly one day and said he wouldn’t tell anybody if I let him know if he was right, so I did let him know.

Today—and for the better part of the last two weeks—I’m glad I did.

So this one is for you.

Like I’ve been saying, I’ve been in somewhat of a funk recently because of financial concerns and uncertainty about my trip in December—I always half-dread these trips because ~18-20 hours of travel (factoring in preparation and time spent sitting around in airports) and three hours of jet lag has never failed to throw me off schedule for weeks afterward.

An actual loss puts everything into perspective, though. In a strange way, this has been like my grandfather’s parting gift to me. I was distracted while he was in and out of the hospital, but at this time, far from being distracted, I feel more focused now than I have in weeks, possibly even months.

I can be somewhat of a distant and logical person much like my grandmother, who wasn’t shaken up even slightly from what I can tell on the phone, but even I could use the reminder that we’re here for a short while and better make it count.

I’m actually going to leave it at that for today, but as I get back on track, expect a bonus post later this week.