Shannon Larratt, the father of BMEzine, is dead.

I read it on the twitters and if not, it would have screamed at me from the top of my Google Reader page. The father of BMEzine, is dead.

The message is on the Modblog: Shannon Larratt 1973-2013
And they link to his final blogpost: Finita, la commedia

It didn’t come too much as a surprise to me, it seems I have learned to accept death as a part of live. My personal moment of surprise was back when he re-appeared on Modblog and I took a look on his personal blog an learned about his degenerative disease in a general life update post. I posted a reply and that feeling is still somewhat the same.
Though today I’ll add the following, for my own personal en selfish process.

Shannon impacted a lot of lives with his Body-Modification-EZine. He informed and shaped many minds about the concepts of body modification. Both the general stuff like piercing and tattoos. Microdermals of late, though they weren’t widespread when they began appearing on BME. And the stuff BME categorizes as “hard”. Hard sure pushed my views on what people choose to do, what the human body stretches to and what imagery I can look at without feeling uneasy. It also ruined about all of the “shocking” passages in modern media. It taught me about the human body, my body. I started reading BMEzine around age 16 and BME shaped me into accepting other peoples choices, shaped my tastes in what I do and don’t like about appearance for myself and for those near me, and that we all have a choice. About everything.
Shannon had an impact, a footprint the majority of people in any era seldom achieve. This doesn’t change that his dying so young is sad. But it is a day to realize that he did do that good in his life.
It’s sad that he suffered ’till the end. The posts about euthanasia on his personal blog tell that story. And I am happy that in Belgium, life is a choice for people that need to make that choice.

He did good in his life.
I’m glad he’s not suffering anymore.