Credit: Afterglow13
Knowing you’re losing your loved one is tough, but making sure their memory remains is even tougher, and for this gamer, it’s even harder after his mother left her memory and a sweet farewell message on his Xbox One controller.
When it comes to games, building memories, and sharing the things we love; sometimes people touch us in ways we’d never thought possible. Some will purchase us a gift, a memento of sorts, that they wish for us to keep around with us for the years to come. Others, they give us a thing for the new, to enjoy while we can, and cherish it once the time has come to hang the metaphorical hat up for good.
For one, that’s much easier said than done. Over the weekend, I’d been hit with a major sense of what we liked to call ‘the feels’ after stumbling across a Reddit post in the subreddit /gaming by user Afterglow13, who tells a heartbreaking story about her partners mother who passed away just recently, but left a little piece of her behind.
In what started out as a simple story turned into something bigger. The mother, the user’s mother-in-law, was ill (unstated due to privacy reasons), and disabled due to her ailment. Before passing, she had managed to get her hands on an Xbox One Scorpio when they became available (revealed in a second thread).
However, her condition became apparent as her health began to deteriorate it came time to give her son the gift, a gift she had saved up for the best she could. As the user reports, her mother-in-law had passed away just four days ago, leaving a controller signed by her for her son, John with the message: “To: John, Love: Mom”.
As the thread goes on, it’s revealed not only is the user looking to immortalize the controller but to preserve the best way possible. Let alone is the Xbox One Scorpio extremely limited, so are their accessories and attachments, but now, this is even more so due to the uniqueness of the message from his mother.
In the thread, the wife writers, “My mother-in-law gifted this to my significant other, and signed it the day she passed. It’s very special to him and signed with a metallic sharpie. How can we protect the writing?”
With more than 2,000 comments since the post was published on Thursday, many have chimed in with several statements, one user in particular stating, “A new controller will never cost as much as this memory.”
Our word of advice? Nothing. Don’t put anything on these sort of artifacts. Unfortunately, coatings will discolor, deteriorate, and even flake with age. As a professional museum employee pointed out, “Don’t put any kind of coating on it. Most “clear coats” will discolour over time, and will eventually yellow, flake, or otherwise deteriorate. Museum-grade storage and display items are readily available though they can be pricey depending upon what you need. Until you can get something, keep it in its case and somewhere safe with minimal temperature changes.”
Interesting enough, there are also things she could potentially do as several posters have stated, which would involve reaching out to Microsoft’s Xbox division and seeing if they could help immortalize the controller or even, perhaps, make a copy of that very controller for this very special occasion.
Whatever happens, our hearts go out to the family and friends of John’s mother.
About the Writer(s):
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the borders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter or Facebook.