"In Memory of My Real-Life Rival"

When I was younger I was never allowed to play Pokemon, that was until some new neighbors moved in across the street and their son (who became my best friend) played it.He had Sapphire and a gameboy advanced, and the first time I met him he showed me everything, he had a Marshtomp as his starter who he loved. This kept on for a couple of months on and off with him showing me his progress in his game, I remember when his starter evolved into Swampert and went he beat the league, I loved watching it and couldn't wait to play it myself.A little bit later Diamond and Pearl came out and we begged my parents to let me get one of the games so we could play together. We did everything else together so why not this? Eventually they caved, I got pearl and he got diamond. I picked Turtwig and he picked Piplup (because he loved his water types) and we named our rivals in game after each other. We got together to battle and trade all the time, it was the most fun I've ever had with Pokemon. This continued with platinum and a bit into heart gold/soul silver but he started to move on.He was always more into sports than me, he played baseball, hockey, and basically any other sport you could imagine. I just played curling (with him) and started doing acting instead, so we started going down different paths. He would still play the games every now and then but I was a lot more serious with it and eventually got pretty good at the card game. The one thing that never changed was that I always named my rivals with his name.Even if we weren't hanging out everyday and no longer talked much, he was still one of my best friends and this help me feel connected to him.We graduated last year from highschool and with barely talking to each other during it, we found each other at grad to wish each other well, catch up, and take a photo.This week he passed away in the Humboldt bus crash in Saskatchewan. I have always thought of him as a brother and a bit as a role model, I've always wanted to be more like him and to see him gone hits me hard.Even after all of this time I still remember the first time we met and his Swampert that he loved. I've made a promise to always name my rival his name in the future so that even though he is gone he isn't forgotten and that I will always love him.I'm not sure why I made this post but I just thought it was a story I needed to share both for his memory and to talk about the feelings I'm going though. This has been a tragedy in Canada and I hope anyone else effected by the crash is doing the absolute best they can. This is just to show that they are all people and each and every person close to them is hurting right now.Rest easy buddy.Edit: Thank you all so much, this means so much to me and to his family via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/2GLBtx0