Can’t Be Said Better Than This
“Dear BRK, I’m still laughing so hard. Thank you BRK.
“Last October my Dad passed away due to Cancer. When I was 3 my mum died in a car accident so it was up to my dad to raise me. I think he did a good job, though him being the joker that he was would no doubt say something like, “Yeah but you don’t have my looks”.
“Anyway. He fought the cancer for a good five years, but during that fight he would also fight alongside me in WoW. We both [were] Tauren Hunters and we would do everything together: Raid, Quest, PVP. Sadly as time went by, he became much sicker and soon couldn’t play anymore.
“After he passed away I couldn’t do much. I just shut down completely. I eventually composed myself. Got back to living my life and returned to WoW. I’ll never truly get over losing my Dad but let me say today helped. It helped alot.
“I ran for Ezra. I ran for BRK. I ran for my Dad. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in this. I’m sure that around the world today many of those Baby Cows themselves have had or do have someone they know with this [Ed: colorful adjective deleted] awful disease. No tears were shed for me today, well maybe one or two but those tears were from laughter. Not because we brought a server down. More because we brought many servers together. [Ed: bold added, 'cause these words made us get misty-eyed.] To Honour a young boy taken from his life far to early.
“I /salute you BRK. I /salute all of you who took part in this. Regards, Chris”
Thank you for giving us permission to print your email, Chris. We’ve written a couple thousand sentences here, but none of them better than that.
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30 Responses to “Can’t Be Said Better Than This”
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Here here…
/well said
Chris, thank you for sharing your story with us. I’m sorry for your loss.
BRK, you’ll be happy to know I just donated $10 to Make-a-Wish.
(They need to make it possible, or easier, to donate in someone’s memory. I couldn’t figure out how to donate on Ezra’s behalf.)
I am one of the few along with Chris who ran not only for Ezra but for my father. My father is currently battling a brain tumor, while he is defied the odds and survived the cancer, Cancer does not leave it’s victims unchanged.
When I read you were doing this BRK, I was touched.
I ran this for Ezra, I ran this for my father, I ran this for the children, and I ran this for Make-A-Wish.
Chris, thank you for sharing your story, and thanks to BRK for no matter what, this holds special significance to all of us.
Have some reports that proximity dis-connects are happening elsewhere. Me wonders if something else is going on with the latest patch that makes it much weaker for large groups than wow used to be.
Enjoyed today BRK. Quested a bunch with someone I met on a different server. Cheers
Hey it’s me Chris. Just got an email from BRK saying that my email is on his blog. I go straight to bigredkitty.net and there it is my email on the front page. Originally I wasn’t going to send an email. I was just going to keep what I felt about todays Raid to myself. But then I saw some of the threads on the Wow Forums and also some comments on this site. There was just so much negativity that I felt BRK had to know that atleast one person today felt incredibly moved by it. If dad were still here (and I told BRK this) He would have been in 100% He actually would have had a character transfer just to give the baby cows more of a chance
I’ve thanked you already BRK and everyone who was in the raid for that matter. But it can’t hurt to thank you again. Today was the best day I’ve had on Wow since playing side by side with my Dad. Thank You.
Chris (BRKMinion)
Well done BRK. You are a class act!
I was honored to be a part of this.
Let’s continue. Yes, we die often. Lets die at the gates of SW. I logged out as a lvl 5 when asked in STV. I say let’s continue. No server issue’s but let’s just do a death march as time allows. What I mean is just log in and run. No raid or timed effort. Just do it! Take a pic when u die. Ok, I’m wierd. Takin’ my cow to SW gates.
I ran until we were asked to stop because I am a cancer survivor (hodgkin’s lymphoma) and I know full well how much it affects all those that it touches. It was amazing that the turnout was so high, and I’m sure that Ezra would appreciate our attempt. A statement was made that will not be forgotten for a long time.
I’m really sorry I didn’t run, I would have but I didn’t hear soon enough. The husband of a friend of my mom’s is battling bone cancer, and i’m afraid, he’s already lost that battle. He’s not dead yet, but he doesn’t have alot of time left.
This event was so great. thanks to all who ran.
Im from EU and couldn’t run myself, but being a doctor who have treated a lot of cancer patients I know that all hope, help and money count.
thx BRK – you sir are ideed a true rolemodel.
I read Chris’ letter and the comments, and I can hardly see to type. Again, a wonderful day, for I was on almost all day, a wonderful event.
om mani padme hum hri
I was honoured to be a part of this. Thank you BRK.
Good show, BRK! I think it’s great you put this event on for laughs and to raise awareness about cancer. The power of this is revealed in Chris’s e-mail about playing with his dad, which brought a tear to my eye. I often get cynical about this game, the game developers, and the legion of jerks in WoW that ruin the game for everyone, but then there are guys like you and Chris that can bring fun, meaning and compassion into a simple video game and transform it into something more than what it is. It is bittersweet to be reminded that the joy and pleasure we take out of life is so often tempered by harsh realities, but there is a triumph in being able to laugh in spite of that, and you have surely triumphed in that way with your run.
/salute
I really enjoyed being a part of it, the whole thing for me was being together with so many players at the same time from different parts of the globe, who cares if the whole thing crashed, it was for a good cause, and to all those trolls that cant stop playing for even 15 min, go out a bit.
If you go to a party and you’re stuck on the road in a traffic jam, who do you blame? the one who told you to go to the party? the one who made the road? come on!
if you cant really get a grasp of the reasons behind this event, and enjoy it for what it was without being selfish about your game experience, you really need to rethink your life a bit.
Thanks for the event BRK, just being part of the tauring starting area was worth every minute /salute
I made a movie of my experience in this run, I will let it speak for itself.
http://youtube.com/l2wow
Thanks BRK!
Thanks for crashing my server, it was a fitting tribute. Oh wait, no it wasn’t. Try and think ahead before you pull a stunt like this. The servers obviously aren’t designed to handle it, and you should have been smart enough to know that ahead of time. If you had encouraged every one, everywhere, on every server, to do it, it would have spread the load. Instead, you accomplished nothing. Thanks again.
@lomax
First, not your server. Its the server you play on.
Second, the people who play on your server were consulted first. They told BRK the server would have no issues.
Get over it.
@lomax Shut the fuck up.
Events similar to this have happened before on the same server, with BRK leading. Those events didn’t crash the game, therefore, we didn’t expect this one to. Unfortunately this one had such a massive unexpected showing that it did what no other event BRK has run before has done: Crashed the server.
As Rikaku said on Mania’s Arcania, this was like a Wow version of Walk for the Cure and I am proud to have been part of it.
Thank you BRK
Berg – good idea – I think I will run my character to the end as well now that it would be safe.
I think the intentions here were good and I was glad to be a part of it. I did log as soon as I started hearing the warnings. Not sure if anyone realized the size that the run would get to.
Thanks BRK – my donation is sent and I hope we raised enough to help another child realize their wish.
@BRK & Chris
/salute
@Lomax
selfish child …. *Secndworst shakes head in pity for Lomax
@Azlen
In your video that was me (As Rahgo) and my gf (as Mooriel)! First time I have seen ourselves in any of the videos
You should be so proud of putting this event together to honor a special young man. Alas being in Australia made it tough for me to be a part of it but I was there in spirit.
As far as crashing a server goes – seriously who cares. Anyone who decides to have a whinge about it really should have a look at themselves. On any given day the servers can be restarted for a hundred different reasons, or in fact no reason at all. I’d quite happily tolerate a few mins of server outage if it draws a little more interest in this awesome cause.
Keep up the good work BRK, you certainly are somewhat of an inspiration, both in game and in life.
It looked huge ! Epic ! I wish I coud have been there but I’m from EU and couldn’t access to EU servers… (I tried though…)
This email and all those comments are very nice !
And for the one complaining about server’s crashing, he should have participate to the event too, so he would have had fun. But I’m not sure he can understand the meaning of the race…
/moo
Nef
Like Chris, I lost my father to cancer (a brain tumor) two years ago. Dad never played WoW, but he had a lot of fun looking over my shoulder as I played, checking out the screenshots, comparing gnome technology to gizmos in the pulp magazines he read while growing up, and like that – the game was a great source of indirect pleasure for him. He’d have loved this run, I’m sure, and would have found the technical issues interesting, too; as an engineer for NASA’s Deep Space Network, he got to troubleshoot some really weird problems in his day.
Good show, folks.
all I can say is well put. My wife and I play together and my oldest daughter. soon to add is my younget daughter. well put
/salute all
/pity lomax
as a fellow tauren hunter i’de like to say
/MOO
and to you father
/salute
As a father who expects to be playing something like this with my son in a few years, i was very moved by the event, and to tears by Chris’ tale.
To all the people who doesn’t understand what good “gaming” is for, they should see something like this. Also, great video there. Thx for making it and sharing, so we europeans could watch.
/salute and /moo