Way back in the fall of 1998 when I, along with Kodiak and so many others were on Colleen's and Dave's web site Playingwithmatches, Kodiak contacted me about a sensitive situation. One of our fellow Bipolars was in terrible financial difficulty. He was being evicted from his apartment, his phone was about to be cut off, his children wore torn clothes and winter as well as Christmas were fast approaching. He asked me if I would help him raise some funds to help this family.
I don't know how much he managed to collect; all I did was contact as many people as possible. But I know that he gave $1,000.00 out of his own pocket. A week or two later I was contacted by our friend and he told me all that he had been
able to do with the money Kodiak had sent him. The bills had been paid, the children had clean second hand clothes and he had managed to put some aside for some Christmas presents. But most importantly, there was food again on the table.  That is the kind of person Kodiak was.

          When Playingwithmatches folded and I opened Bipolar Bulletin Board, I was
     totally inexperienced and had no idea as to what I was getting myself into. I just did
      not want to lose my friends who had become my family. But I did need help. And
        Kodiak stepped in again and offered to help me with some letters sent to me by
      male Bipolars, letters with the kind of problems that I could not handle. In the past
          year, I must have sent him dozens of such letters. He was always there for me.

        Sometime last summer, he injured his leg and had to be hospitalized. He was in
      great pain and the doctors did not know at first what was wrong with him. I would
        call him every night just to hear his voice to gauge his mood and see whether or
     not the pain had lessened somewhat. He stayed there about seven to eight days, I
     think. A few days after his release, he sent me twelve long stem roses. Again, that
       was Kodiak and his way of saying thank you for the nights he spent talking to a
       friend when he was scared and lonely. I kept one, pressed between a book of
                                  poetry, for this man was a poem.

   Now most of you will probably find this story funny but, at the time, I did not know
    who else to turn to with a question concerning a subject everyone else seemed to
   know about. I spend twelve, sometimes fifteen hours taking care of the board and
   replying to the emails I receive. I never surf unless I have to locate somebody who
      needs help or if an intruder is causing trouble on the board. But like all of us, I
 have my pride and when some women (and you know who you are since I confessed
    my ignorance! Lol!) would talk to me about this particular subject, women whom I
      have met on the board and later on became my friends, I pretended to know all
   about it and managed to get away with it. But I was becoming curious and did not
     like to deceive them. Now the only person I could think of asking about this was
  Kodiak, whom I have always trusted and knew would give me a straight answer. So
    one day, I asked him in an email: "Could you please explain to me what 'cybering'
      means?" Now I can just picture all of you laughing, for here is a grown woman,
             married and everything, not knowing about this. But imagine just how
  embarrassed I was when I found out what it was and from a man, no less! Had I had
 the vaguest idea, I most certainly would have asked a woman, of course. But Kodiak
         replied to me in his kind and gentle way, without mocking me, or telling me to
       "get with the program." He actually warned me about more than I cared to know.
   And he did it in such a way that there was no awkwardness between us afterwards.
                   Kodiak was a gentleman to the bone.

            There are so many things I could write here about this wonderful man. But it
       would probably turn into a book. And those are only some of the things I know
     about. He might have helped you with legal matters or a loan and nobody knows
       about it. He was the kind of man who got the job done and never mentioned it.

 Dearest Ben, not a day goes by that I do not think about you. And as I am typing this
    homage to you, the tears are flowing abundantly. I must stop now for my vision is
        blurred. But my heart sees you clearly and always will. Goodbye, dear friend. 

                   I love you.

                   Dianne 

                   Shall I compare you to a Summers day?

                   Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

                   Rough windes do shake the darling buds of Maie,

                   And Sommers lease hath all too short a date:

                   Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

                   And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,

                   And every faire from faire some-time declines,

                   By chance, or nature changing course untrim'd:

                   But thy eternall Sommer shall not fade,

                   Nor lose posssession of that faire thou ow'st,

                   Nor shall death brag thou wandr'st in his shade,

                   When in eternall lines to time thou grow'st,

                   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

                   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

                   William Shakespeare

                   Sonnet 18