Like many who have posted already, I find it hard to believe that it has been a year already.
SmallFry's presence is still woven into the fabric of GeekHack and I'm reminded of him almost every day. Wether it's his icon peeking out from under the banner, visiting threads that he started that are STILL active and read everyday, or revisiting an old PM that he sent me. His humor, his voracious energy and enthusiasm as well as his friendship are certainly missed, but thinking of him still puts a smile on my face.
So it's been a year and I still haven't built up my Phantom (he was going to build it) and I now have the same forum title that he does. It's bitter sweet when I think of things like this and all the "could of's". Those pangs of loss have softened just a hint this year, but they are still there.
Then my thoughts turn to his family and how open and caring they were to open up their home last year and invite us in to share our sense of loss. We swapped stories, filled in a few blanks regarding their son's hobby and did what people do -- try to make sense of a completely unfathomable event.
In SmallFry's family I saw the blueprint of what made him so unique and so special. There's an old adage that goes, "the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree", and I think that definitely applies here. BigFry and MamaFry provided the best of all branches for SmallFry to leap from and as we sat around that Sunday telling stories it was clear that he was an amazing kid.
All of us here may have only seen a one small part of his life, but Nathan's passion for things and willingness to reach out and help others was part of everything he did. That vibrant energy he had for mechanical keyboards found a home here at GeekHack and it clearly left a lasting impression.
I miss him.
If you got all the parts I will build up that phantom for you. I feel like Smallfry would offer this if he saw that in a post. In all seriousness I will build that Phantom up for you for free (just pay shipping at least one way) Provided you have the parts.