I've never posted to reddit before, so I'll do my best to format this correctly. I'm also not sure what to tag this or if this would even be the right subreddit to post this in, admittedly, so if this gets taken down I'll understand and I sincerely apologize. I want to share a story about Final Fantasy XIV, along with Final Fantasy XI with you all as a thank you. I've already talked about this on twitter earlier today, but I want to share it here as well.
As a kid, I always remembered growing up and watching my father play Final Fantasy games. As such, my entire family has a very special place in our hearts for the series, especially for Final Fantasy XI and XIV. He began playing Final Fantasy XI back in 2005, and played it every day until Final Fantasy: A Realm Reborn was released. Honestly, some of you here might even recognize his username: Larryb. I remember the excitement in his eyes whenever a new update would come out or a new expansion pack was released. He adored that game. Once Final Fantasy XIV was first announced, I also remember how excited he was to get a chance to help alpha test it and him showing me every ounce of potential the game held while I was in elementary/middle school. I found the game so inspiring, even more so as he called me in his room so he and I could watch that beautiful cut-scene many years ago when they changed over to A Realm Reborn. As soon as that came out, he played it every day, and built up his character over several years. With every update and expansion pack came overwhelming bounds of excitement to discuss the changes, tweaks, or new content that would occur. To this day, Final Fantasy XIV is his favorite game. Again, some of you may recognize his character name as Bones Mccoy. However, this is unfortunately where this story begins to get more depressing.
My father has had a rough time with his health, but no matter what he was always able to come home and play Final Fantasy, whether it be XI several years ago or XIV these past few years. No matter what happened, it would always make him smile. As of today, he's survived through 3 heart attacks, 3 strokes, kidney stones, a fractured L3, misaligned bones in his neck that were never able to be fixed, along with numerous other medical problems. Both his most recent stroke and heart attack has occurred within this past month, and his health has been declining quickly. After his first stroke, he struggled, but he still sat at his desk at every opportunity he could to play FFXIV. After his second stroke, his right side became paralyzed and he became bed-bound. Despite this, he still played and you could still see the fire light up in his eyes when you got him talking about what was new with FFXIV or how to play. Even while bed-bound you could find this tank of a guy getting more than excited for the newest expansion packs as they came out. Some days were harder than others, and he didn't feel well enough to play, but whenever he would request to play this game on his laptop we always knew he hadn't given up hope yet. In fact, my cousin actually helped us program a controller to help him play with his left hand alone and design macros that would allow you to do insane combos and play an entire job in 3 clicks so that if we had homework, he could still do some major fights on his own. Sometimes we had to help him win a fight, but he still loved watching and telling how to beat the creatures. One of my fondest memories is working with him as he described to me how to beat the final boss of the main story-line of Shadowbringers. Final Fantasy XIV served us as a huge source of hope through those dark times.
This past month is where things have been the worst. As I wrote, he had his third stroke. He's been in the hospital twice, and yesterday came home to us under Hospice care. No one is sure how much time he has left. One of the first things he said to me when he came home was "I can't play anymore - the game". I don't think I've ever seen him so defeated. It felt like he had lost all of the light in his heart. Today he decided that he was tired of suffering, and we as a family had the DNR paperwork signed today. Following that, he had the discussion with my mother about possibly deactivating his account after all of these years to maybe help us save money through these harder times. I remember how much that shocked me when I heard about it. We haven't done that yet, and admittedly, I think we've all found the thought rather hard to handle. For me, the thought of his character - and all those years he lovingly put into it - being gone almost feels like losing a piece of him, too. I'm not sure what we're going to do about that going forward.
Anyway, the point of this long-winded post was to share this story. Final Fantasy XIV has served as a large source of hope for my family for several years now and the thought of it all coming to an end after seeing him play online Final Fantasy games for 3/4 of my life has been a shock. I just wanted to say thank you - to all of you. I wanted to say thank you to those at Square Enix that helped develop the game, no matter how small. I wanted to say thank you to every single one of you who was in a party with him or spoke to him at some point as he played both Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV these past 15 years, even if the fights you fought together were lost. I wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you that has helped him smile for these past several years simply by being a part of this game.
So, thank you to every single person here. It means the world to us. If anyone has any questions, let me know and I'll try to answer them. Only believe, for the light liveth in thy heart.
(Below I've attached two photos of both of his characters, along with two paintings that my younger sister and I painted last week to help encourage him during his last trip to the hospital. I hope these paintings bring you some joy like they're helped to bring him a little joy when he came home.)
My father's original character from FFXI
My Father's current character from FFXIV
My sister's painting of a Chocobo
My painting of my father and Hydaelyn, along with a quote I remembered from one of the game's cut-scenes. It's been a while since I've played so I'm hoping the quote is correct.
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