It's been an entire year with Yang and as time comes closer and closer to today, I think back to Yang's time on this planet. The usual what could have, what should have beens that we as humans all go through. I think about the things we used to do together.

Playing multiplayer games, I wonder how he'd feel about the new Monster Hunter, he was looking forward to it, in the end. How in Minecraft, he just loved to fish after building his house. About all that Vtuber drama that happened! omg. Can you all imagine him reacting to all that? I did.

Our circle of writing friends played D&D together. We actually started a new game around the time he moved back to Boston, his character was Gale Wulfsoul. We saw his name every week when playing. Actually just finished it last week, it was bittersweet, completing yet another without him. We could have used his help!

The little reminders of Yang are hurting less and less now. And I like to think he'd be happy about that. I don't know. All I can say is that so many people on this planet miss him. Me included.

Goodbye Yang. We still miss you.

I found out about Yang's passing today - we used to play D&D together when he lived in Canada, and we lost touch after COVID locked us all inside. I hadn't known he had moved away. I started discovering my love of D&D again a year ago, and I kept thinking of him. I had this voice in the back of my mind that would remind me to invite him to the oneshot I keep meaning to DM. I'm really devastated that I'll never get the chance.

Yang was a star. I only knew him briefly, but he left a light behind that will never be snuffed out. I've never met another person who so effortlessly embodied joy and whimsy. He was the sweetest and kindest person. He showed up to my birthday party in 2019 before anyone else. He couldn't resist cuddling every cat he ever met.

It's incredibly unfair that he's gone from this world so soon. But I know his spirit will live on through those that knew him well, and even those, like me, who only knew him a little. I'm going to make an extra effort to freak out harder at every cat I come across, and I will never stop playing D&D. And if anyone asks me why, I'll say it's for my old friend. It's how I can keep his memory alive. 

My sincerest condolences to his family and friends. Please know that there are folks all the way in Montreal that are thinking of Yang and missing him dearly. 

Yang, your death leaves a heartache that no one can heal;

But your friendship leaves a memory that no one can steal.

I first met Yang in high school, and we quickly became close friends. We connected over our shared love of cats, video games, internet memes, and card games. I have so many fond memories of spending time with him and our group of friends.

Yang was an open and kind person, always willing to talk about anything without judgment. He was the kind of friend who would go out of his way for others, often giving me rides home and even helping me learn how to drive. He was always patient and ready to lend a hand. He listened to my problems, offered a shoulder to cry on, and gave me advice when I needed it most.

But Yang wasn’t only there in the serious moments—we had so much fun together, too. We shared a love for silly internet memes, especially “I Can Has Cheezburger?” cat memes. We played games, laughed over videos, and spent hours exploring together. We went on trips, tried new foods, and spent many afternoons in Chinatown.

One of the things I loved most about Yang was his love for animals, especially cats. He’d get so excited when he saw a dog or cat, and that child-like wonder of his reminded me to appreciate the joy in life.

After he moved to Canada, we didn’t see each other as often, but we stayed close. When I started my YouTube channel, he was one of my biggest supporters, always cheering me on. He’d join my livestreams, chatting with me and, of course, talking about cats.

Even in his fight against cancer, Yang was so positive. He was the one comforting me when I became sad at the thought of losing him. He told me he’d had a good life and wasn’t scared or sad.

Right before he passed, he told me, "Thank you for being my friend. I had so many fun memories with you."

I have so many fun memories with Yang too. Thank you, Yang, for being my friend. Goodbye, my friend. Rest in peace.

I played Dungeons and Dragons over voice with Yang every single Saturday night for many years. Whether he was a player or a game-master, he was always so incredibly patient and happy to share his knowledge and experience. His chipper voice and cat noises always made me smile, and many a serious moment was endearingly interrupted by outburst of "OH MY GOD it's a kitty! Hello kitty, you are so cute! Yes, you are!"

I played a lot with Yang outside of Dungeons and Dragons, too. He introduced us to several games he loved, like "Heroes of Hammerwatch", "Astroneer", and, of course, "EVE Online". But the one I loved the most was "Monster Hunter: Rise." Four of us played that entire game together from start to finish, and it quickly shot up to the top of my 'most played' list, mostly because of the wonderful friends I was able to play it with (even though I strongly suspect Yang's favorite part of the game was your feline companion, the "palico").  I'll smile and think of Yang every time I play Monster Hunter.

Even when he wasn't gaming, he would frequently join the voice chat just to hang out. Sometimes he would even let us watch as he meticulously crafted his leatherworks, those precious artefacts he made with such love and care. His infectious laughter and bright personality lifted the mood of every conversation he was a part of.

To  Xiaoling Puyang and Xiaogang Gao, thank you. Thank you for raising such a wonderful and inspiring son, and thank you for inviting us to pay our respects to him. His warm, positive, cat-loving spirit will live on through all of us whose lives he made better by being our friend. <3

(My Eulogy)

It’s kind of hard to talk about Yang because of the way he made ordinary days feel like so much more. Cassandra and I sat down and made a long list of good times that we wanted to share with all of you, but the problem that I came up against when trying to write them out was that they didn’t actually make very good stories, because the time we shared with Yang was so utterly mundane. We would play games together and drink bubble tea. Sometimes we went on adventures - to a leatherworking shop, to street festivals, to new restaurants or the hardware store - but I’ve found that none of these make particularly interesting stories either. I mean, none of you want to hear a twenty minute story that starts with “So we decided to go to Home Depot!” and then doesn’t get any more interesting. But those are the kinds of stories that I have to tell, because those were the moments with Yang that I cherished the most.

Some of the best days of my life were the ones where Yang would come over and fall asleep on the couch. They were quiet days filled with the bubble tea he would always bring, with the same games that we’d play over and over, and they would inevitably end with us working side-by-side in companionable silence as it got dark out. Those are the times I think I want to remember the most, the good, quiet moments where we could just enjoy each other’s company. That’s what I want to hold onto, that and all the little pieces of him I’ve come to know - his cheeky sense of humour, how excited he got whenever he was working on any new project, and perhaps most of all the way that no fuzzy animal of any size was ever safe from being picked up and enthusiastically hugged by him.

I never understood the expression, “better to have loved and lost than never loved at all” before I met Yang, but now I do. The loss of him leaves a hole in my heart that cannot be filled, because there is no one else in the world who could ever take his place. But when I look back on our time together, I would never have traded his presence in my life no matter how much it hurts to have him gone.

And that is something that we all share, I think, as the people who love Yang. Through us, his friends and family, he will never be forgotten. We’ll keep his memory alive with the games we play and the cats we pet and the tea we drink. He will be with me when I tinker with a computer, when I sit down to write, and every time I take a picture of a cat. I know each one of you has things like that too, things that will always remind you of him, and those lovely pieces of him that have stuck with us for so long will be what keeps his memory alive.I will miss his presence here on Earth so much, but the nature of the time we spent together means that I can never be sad without remembering everything that was happy, too. And that, I think, is exactly how he would want it to be.

Thank you, Xiaogang and Xiaoling, for bringing your beautiful son into this world. We are honoured to love him.

(My Eulogy)

I was having a hard time figuring out what to write or talk about for this. Saying goodbye is hard. Saying goodbye publicly *about* someone and not *to* someone is a weird, uncomfortable thing. So I started digging through my chat logs with Yang hoping for inspiration.

Turns out, we had nearly daily chat logs dating back to 2010 in gchat. And I’m certain there were many more before that from when everything wasn’t automatically saved to the cloud.

Often those chats were just a series of meows and ascii emojis from Yang, and random complaints or silly observations from me. I'd say 90% of our conversations were just that.

He would go Yiyiyiyi!!! There's a kitty on my lap! Followed by a million smile emojis.

Or I would go Yang!! I'm hungry!!!

And he would respond awww *pat pat* go eat something!

And those would be the interactions that day. Silly, comfortable, and unimportant.

Only they weren't unimportant. They were very important. Because they were proof that we were always there. So when the important shit came up, we knew we could rely on each other.

I always knew I could reach out to Yang. BeCAUSE he was always there for the tiny things, I knew he would also be there for the big things.

Yang had a special kind of optimism and kindness. He could listen without judgment, express anger without blame, and was so so endlessly patient. Sometimes he was almost too good. Sometimes I'd be like Yang!!! Join me in this outrage! Or I'd ask him why he never seems to be angry or upset. And he would just respond with the shrugging emoji. His heart was just way too big.

I would only ever see any negativity from him when it came to feeling on behalf of other people. I've always been a hot mess in my relationships - with my parents, with friends, with partners.

A large portion of that 10% of the time we spent talking about serious things was dedicated to him comforting me through various fights and breakups and drama. And we went all the way back to high school so there certainly was drama. I was volatile and crazy where he was calm.

Yang was protective. Of me and all of the people he loved. He was slow to anger but always a strong and loyal advocate for his friends. It hurt him when his friends hurt and he always spoke up for the right thing. He was steady as hell and so easy to talk to. Over the years, we must have had hundreds of basically the same conversations about me and my relationship problems. He had the patience of a saint. He knew that to be a friend meant sometimes saying *pat pat* at the 20th breakup with the same boy. Yes we hate him. He's a jerk. You deserve better.

Yang deserved better.

Yang was one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. He had a unique combination of being insanely analytical and incredibly creative. I saw it in how much he enjoyed diving into science or engineering topics, and in his prolific writing.

One day he asked for our home address. Henry, my partner, and I were living together by then. A week or so later, a beautiful suede leather dice bag had arrived - a gift for Henry. Apparently Yang was now a leathersmith.

Yang was also just fun as shit to hang out with. Even when we were living in different countries and couldn't kick it in person, we spent hundreds maybe thousands of hours online together, playing games and building worlds. Our friend group adventured together for almost a decade. Whenever I tell other people about how long we've spent playing a game as a solid, reliable group, they're always impressed (and a little jealous). Consistency like that is rare, and Yang was a major reason we all stayed together. He was the most consistent and communicative player, and poured so much into the games - setting up spreadsheets and crafting content outside of playtime in anticipation of our next sessions.

He was capable of basically anything he wanted to do. Except holding his liquor.

Even when he couldn't really talk anymore and play with us, he still listened in and heckled us in text chat. He always showed up for his friends.

It really hurts that he won't be showing up anymore, despite his best efforts. He's left a massive hole. There was so much more he could have done and built, and it's very unfair.

Toward the end, he repeated many times that he was ready and at peace. He was steady and smiling even when we all knew he was in pain, because that's who he was. The last time I saw him, he smiled and laughed with us and gave me a light-up d20. We made dozens of distasteful “you're dying” jokes. He was, as ever, calm and reassuring.

I'm not Yang. I was losing my shit, messaging him at all hours just to say “I'm really sad you're dying.” And he would comfort me like he always did.

Now he's gone and I'm so angry and so sad. This loss is massive. Yes, I'm grateful for the wonderful times we shared, the lessons I learned from him, all the jokes and talks big and small. But right now mostly I'm upset and he's not even around to talk me down. It's ridiculously unfair that we all lost such an incredible human.

So I guess all I have left to say is sorry. And *pat pat* for all our loss.