The Geek I Am.... My Homage To My Dad

As I write this weeks blog it is May 21st, 2016 and here in Canada we're celebrating the Victoria Day long weekend, well most of us are anyways.

I am sitting here on my parents back deck falling asleep, its been a long week.

CanGeek is a dream slowly becoming reality,  but at this point it doesn't pay the bills,  so I also work 40 hours a week as a Store Manager for a 'As Seen On TV" retailer, the things we do to chase our dreams......

My father is sitting next to me and he's falling asleep too, his fatigue is of a much different nature, brought about by unimaginable pain and discomfort.

My father is dying, he has terminal cancer and this weeks blog is my homage to him.

I have been asking myself for weeks whither this blog was appropriate given the nature of its content and I've decided it is, I wouldn't be who I am today if not for the influence my father has had on my life.

Without dating myself, I went through adolescence at a time when society was slightly less accepting of what we now refer to as fandom and pop culture.  That`s not to say that we didn't celebrate our shared enjoyment of genre films and television shows, and we absolutely bought our comics and games on a weekly basis, but it felt like to avoid unfair judgement and peer pressure we weren't so open about our likes and dislikes.

We didn't wear our geek on our sleeves, not like we do today, and wearing Marvel or DC attire to anything other then elementary school was a good way to get an ass kicking.

It was the dark times indeed.

Through all this however I always seemed to have the love and support of my father.  Born in 1931 he grew up in a much different time, and his experiences could have just as easily drove a wedge into our relationship, but he was always supportive of my choices and decisions.

So well other kids were off joining sports teams and going to Friday night parties, I was playing video games with a close group of friends, being introduced to RPG`s such as D&D and Shadowrun, and playing tabletop games like Battletech and Magic: The Gathering (We Did a lot of that!)

And my Dad was always there to take interest in what we were doing, asking questions and in a lot of cases adding to my gaming collection wherever possible.

Eventually I fell in love with a truly beautiful woman, she is both kind and considerate to everyone around her, and I was considering popping the question. 

The advice I received from my friends was "Do more with your life and then maybe get married"
The advice I received from my father was  "Do what feels right in your heart"

We married, bought a house, and since then have begun to raise two wonderful children and spent many amazing years together.

Last June I was laid off after giving 6 1/2 years of my life to EB Games Canada, this happened three months after the news of my fathers cancer, and I was forced to come to terms with so much at once.

It took me months to decide my next move, CanGeek, a business I'd been considering for years and years. One afternoon I explained my plans to my father, this was in an attempt to focus him on something other then his pain, and once again he surprised me by offering money to invest in the business.

With so much going on for both him and my mother he was still thinking of his children first, that is the type of man he is and the type of father he has been to his three children.

Fathers day is just under a month away now, and CanGeek will be introducing a limited edition product celebrating all the Gamer Dads out there, it will be available for purchase through our new Facebook store.  Our hope is that it will be a gift both you and your fathers will treasure for years to come.

As both a father and a son my hope is that I will have the opportunity to celebrate one more fathers day weekend with my dad because if not for him I would not be the geek I am today.....

Thanks for reading.