Rest Well, Jeff and My Apologies

About the first year Scared Sheetless started, I found a website called Paranormal News. At that time, it was the biggest paranormal website around. For shits and giggles, I e-mailed the admin, giving him some samples of my work, and not really expecting to write for this high-end website. The admin, Jeff Behnke, emailed me back, and said he would love to post my articles. That was that.

I sent Jeff articles quite often for the first year I wrote for him. Posting various D.I.Y. paranormal tips, as well as stuff about haunted locations. After a while though, I stopped sending him new material, mainly due to the fact that this was when the contributors were keeping this page alive and I took a backseat. This was also because my grandfather (my mother's father) was very ill and needed someone to be there for him. Jeff and I kept in touch via Facebook. 

Jeff asked me to review one of his books, In The Light, which talks about how panic attacks led to hallucinations about his own death, which led to him being sent to a mental hospital. Jeff swore up and down to me it was all true and I believe him. It wasn't the best written book, it definitely had some grammar issues, but the story was very intriguing. I did have a review up, however, I took it down ... I'll explain that now.

Before signing with HGM Publishing, I was self-publishing. I just self-published The Afterlife Chronicles - Symbol of the Dead. My first book. I figured since I reviewed Jeff's book, he could return the favor and help a friend out by reviewing mine. I told him about it, he gave me his address, and said he most likely won't get to it until later. That was fine. However, months go by and I don't hear from him. To be honest, it made feel like shit. I started to worry that he read it, hated it, didn't know what to say, etc. etc. Then anger took over. I was mad that I read his book, reviewed it, and he couldn't do the same for me. So, like the child I was back then, I deleted him off of Facebook, and deleted his book review on here. Unfortunately, back then, my anger was an issue. But thankfully I've worked on it and things like that don't piss me off anymore. I was too passionate about my work back then.

However, I was going through my bookmarks and found a link to when Jeff posted the first chapter of my book on Paranormal News just to help me out. This was before I asked him if he wanted a copy and that whole shit storm happened. The link didn't work. I figured, maybe he deleted it. Then, I tried the link to the main page - didn't work. Thinking that was strange, I looked him up on Facebook and saw he hasn't posted since summer last year. Some Facebook's are like that, where you will only see so many posts. 

But then, I looked up his name and saw two comments that confirmed that Jeff passed away in September of 2016. They didn't say how. I found that out today. And today is February 14th, 2017 - he's been deceased for almost five months. 

If there is an afterlife, and if the afterlife has internet access, I want to apologize to Jeff. He did give me one of my first breaks in becoming a paranormal blogger. Brought a lot of attention to Scared Sheetless back in the early days. I can't say we were best friends. We never really talked about our lives or anything about that. It was more of a business relationship, but I do appreciate it. I wish I wouldn't have jumped the gun and just said, fuck him, without even asking him if he read my book. Or maybe I did and I wasn't happy with what he said. I vaguely remember us having a conversation about it, but because it's vague, I don't want to say whether it was good or bad, but I was pissed off enough to delete his book review and him on Facebook. I don't have a good memory, but regardless of if or if not he said anything, he was still someone who helped me out. Who helped get my foot in the door. 

Thank you, Jeff. 

Rest well, Jeff. 

I'm sorry, Jeff.