I'm incredibly saddened at the news of losing Charlie. I hadn't spoken to Charlie for a few years, but the loss is difficult to put into words.

I can't remember the first time Charlie and I spoke, but I fondly remember all my time spent with him. He's someone who was present either directly or adjacently through most of my key adolescent years, and whose presence in my life helped shaped primary parts of who I am today.

My freshman year of high school, my best friends and I ended up in different lunch periods, and I didn't know very many people. This ended up being a blessing, because it gave me the ability to make more best friends: Charlie was one of the people who immediately welcomed me to his lunch table, and we clicked very quickly. Being a socially anxious kid, this felt like nothing short of a miracle at the time.

As we hung out, I found that Charlie had a rare combination of qualities of being incredibly intelligent, artistically creative, and hilariously funny -- maybe most importantly, he was someone who would always take the time to listen to you when you were hanging out. His approach to logical problem solving is something that still inspires me now, but that's not nearly as important as how I feel about his creativity.

Charlie was the first person to ever record music that Nick Zamora and I wrote; when he said he also wanted to write with us, he became the electronic/technical wizard behind the "band" Days In Ruin and contributed to most of the music we released. Seeing him work on our material was something that inspired me to look into music production myself, and long after high school, I would occasionally reach out to ask him production questions (in fact, we remained in contact fairly regularly until around 2018/2019, calling each other and talking about art, music, and technology once every few months).

I remember the pride I felt the day that I sent him a song asking for feedback and he said "You've surpassed me in everyway, this is amazing! It sounds great. You should be proud. That's my feedback :)" I disagree that I knew more than him, but to receive acknowledgement from the person who showed me the way was huge, and his words have stuck with me when I feel creative self-doubt. Now, I think of him when I hear certain synthesizer tones, melodic compositions, or listen to certain bands he introduced me to.

Most importantly, Charlie was a friend. Many others who wrote here can capture his personality better than I can, but he was always present. As I've gotten older, I've seen that basic compassion is something that can easily get lost in translation; for Charlie, this was never the case. We played pranks on each other and on our friends; we'd get food and play video games; we were kids living our lives, without a care in the world.

As we grew up, Charlie supported me. When I said I was looking for work during college, he connected me with his father, Bill, who was my first boss (a job I look back on fondly). I am still appreciative to this day of the chance/risk the Hron Weigle family took on a kid with no background in the field at all, as it helped set me up for success in my career today.

The final time I saw Charlie in person was a few years before COVID hit. We were able to recapture some of the nostalgic, high school days when we were catching up. I'm very grateful that I had that time with him. We had a few texts in 2018 about music, which I've been running through as I write this -- as usual, we bounced around from jokes, to music critique, to psychology and existential philosophical discussion. That was and will always be Charlie to me. I wouldn't have it any other way.

My heart hurts for this loss, and I am sending my best wishes and condolences to Charlie's friends and family. There's a lot of love for Charlie and always will be.

Charlie and I were friends in middle and high school. He had a great impact on my pursuit of programming. I remember watching Charlie and Jimmy work on a project in Game Maker during some free time in middle school, and felt they had unlocked a world of possibilities. I thought that maybe I could do that too. When I started making games myself Charlie taught me about using GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) to create sprites for characters. In high school I was impressed again when Charlie showed me how he had modified his Linux OS to make it so application windows caught fire when you closed them. Back then I always wondered how he could figure things out like that, and looked up to him both for his technical thinking and ability to learn things on his own.

My fondest memory of Charlie was working on a video together for our high school physics class called “Willy Wonka & The Physics Factory.” The project was to incorporate what we learned in class throughout the year into a short film. As you can probably guess, our movie was a take on “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.” In our version, I played Willy Wonka and Charlie played Charlie, of course. Charlie, being the main character, was in practically every scene. He brought the same amount of energy and lighthearted fun that he did to all of his relationships in life. The movie was wild and unhinged, but simultaneously conveyed a good knowledge of physics. We ended up winning two “Phizzies” during the award ceremony that year. To this day those are the greatest trophies I’ve ever received.

The last time I saw Charlie was at one of Ian’s birthday parties shortly after graduating college. I hadn’t seen him in a while. He was growing his hair out, and I remember thinking it suited his personality so well. We got to catch up that day, talking about programming and all the things we learned in college. There were a bunch of people from “Willy Wonka” there too, and that party really felt like a high school reunion of sorts. I’m glad we all had that time to spend in each other’s company again before life got busy.

Charlie brought joy wherever he went and shared it with everyone. I’ll remember him forever. He’s part of the reason I am who I am today.

I’ve known Charlie since he was three and I was five. We grew up just two doors apart, and most days of our childhood were spent side by side.

From long summer days spent playing Super Nintendo, to endless hours riding our bikes up and down our little street — Charlie was part of all of it. Every Halloween, we’d go trick-or-treating and then spend the night trading candy in his living room.Thankfully, we never liked the same ones so we made some good trades.

There were dance parties in my basement, trampoline days in the backyard, a lawnmower decorating competition for the block party, and winter afternoons spent ice skating and sledding. Charlie and his sister Caroline even helped me plan our games and activities for my birthday parties.

The most simple things…yet we had the best times.

Charlie wasn’t just a neighbor.

Charlie and Caroline were my best friends growing up.

To Charlie, and to the entire Hron Weigle family — thank you for filling my childhood with joy, friendship, and so many memories I will treasure forever.

It is absolutely heartbreaking to hear of Charlie’s passing. I am so, so sorry❤️ My heart is with his dear family.

Charlie was someone who was 100% comfortable being himself, regardless of where he was, or who he was with. It was a beautiful quality. He was always having a great time, and he easily drew others into that same freedom and fun.

I met Charlie in fourth grade when my family started going to a new church. I didn’t know any of the kids there but my brother Jimmy knew two of them from middle school, Charlie and Caroline. They were a little older than me (aka super cool) and I was relieved that they were friendly, and willing to adopt me as part of their group.

After that, we saw them every Sunday for years, plus school, evening Confirmation classes, and additional hangouts either at the park or someone’s house.

It was carpooling to and from some of these things where Charlie introduced us to Linkin Park, or more specifically, head banging to Linkin Park.

Then there was:

-Leading VBS together (which for some reason included Charlie trying to come down a steep hill while tied to a chair),

-Playing “Virus” (basically, “tag”) at the park,

-Pie eating contests

-Pretending to be chased by “the fuzz” (except Charlie kept accidentally saying “the fluff” instead)

-Charlie and Jimmy deconstructing and then reassembling their Nintendo DS’s just for fun,

-Charlie’s French class visiting mine to perform a song about the verb “Aller” (where Charlie started a conga line, and danced until the entire room joined in),

-Collaborating on new music projects and high school film projects (and cracking up the entire time)…

Lots of memories. All of them with common themes of laughing a lot and enjoying each random, silly moment as it came.

It was a gift to have Charlie in my life during the formative middle and high school years. Knowing him was an invitation to be original, silly, inventive, and to have a good time wherever you were. Anyone with a friend like that would be better for it, and I was better for it.