So long Tarthos

The following post is from Lulu.

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Tonight, October 13, 2008, around 7:00 pm, Steve “Tarthos” Greenbaum passed away after a long, painful battle with brain cancer.

His wife Linda called me about 9:45 pm to give me the bad news. Many of you gamed with Tarthos during the beta, and you know what a truly wonderful man he was. He was always fun to play and just an all around nice guy.

I was lucky enough to actually get to meet him for a day last year when he and his wife swung by my house on their way home back to PA from a recent road trip they’d been on. They didn’t get to stay long, only a few hours, but it was a wonderful few hours. We sat and talked like we’d known each other forever and had a really good time.

Although neither of us have had much time for gaming lately, we’ve still kept in contact via Xbox.com sending messages through our friends list, messages on IM or on the telephone. I had just talked to him about a month and a half ago and he sounded great, said he felt great, everything was going good….then…bang, it hit him…hard. You never realize how fragile life is, or how important it is to keep in touch with your friends until something horrible happens.

I’m so glad I was able to keep in contact with Steve and that he knew how much I loved him before he passed away.

Once I found out he was extremely ill I started calling every day and was able to talk to him a few times till he got too sick to be able to speak. We talked about “the good ol’ days” of beta testing Shadowrun, and how much fun he had, and how much he loved all his beta buddies and missed them. His wife said every time someone mentioned any of us too him he smiled, even when he couldn’t speak any more. The thought of his beta friends made him happy even in the end and that speaks volumes about how you don’t have to “meet” someone to make a connection, sometimes just being a decent human being, if even from a distance, is enough to make a lasting impression. Steve was smart, he was funny and it didn’t matter what kind of mood I was in, he could always make me laugh. I’m not glad Steve is gone, but I am glad his suffering is over because he didn’t deserve to suffer the way he did.

I’ve been passing on the well wishes I’ve gotten from everyone to his wife and she greatly appreciates it. She know’s how much we all meant to him and it makes her happy to know the he meant just as much too us. For all of you that have donated money to buy a graveside bench for Steve’s grave, I greatly appreciate it. I know times are tight right now for everyone and that makes the donations we’ve gotten even more special. I want to thank Bryan (bry4) for the idea of getting the bench and for organizing that effort and starting a special PayPal account especially for it, that’s a lot to take on and I appreciate it. I also want to thank Eric (EA) for posting about Tarthos in his blog so we could better get the word out to maybe some people we’ve lost contact since the beta, again, I appreciate it.

Now I think I’m done for now. I’m sorry for rambling. Now that I’ve got that out there I have to go now because I need a good cry. Thanks to all of you again, and remember he’s only truely gone….if we forget him.

LuLu

Donations may be sent here: The Tarthos Fund

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Thank you to the former FASA studio members for sending the love out to Tarthos. We are not surprised.