I was shocked and saddened when I was browsing my blog-reading feed this week to discover that two of the bloggers I follow had either died or had entered hospice.

The first was Vampifan, from Vampifan’s World of the Undead, who had written to say that he was terminally ill and entering hospice, and would no longer be writing as a result. Vampifan was instrumental in getting into zombie miniature wargaming through his detailed reports from his All Things Zombie solo campaign. I emulated his style in one of my offshoot blogs, Hard Boiled Zombies, to which he was a fan and avid reader. For the last several years he had moved away from that topic to other games, but was always an intelligent, passionate hobbyist who showed that you didn’t have to be a stellar artist to have a really good game.

The second was “Fett” from All Things Fett, a fairly obscure blog about wargaming with a particular interest in using toys for that purpose. Fett’s wife revealed that her husband had contracted cancer and then developed blood clots following treatment had died following a long stay in the hospital. This one is particularly upsetting for me because in addition to leaving behind a wife, I know he had at least one child as well (whose imagination he often bragged about on his blog).

I never met either in person, just corresponded via email or comments on blogs, but both will be a loss to a long-standing hobby community of bloggers. Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them. Amen.