I've been playing a text based roleplaying game for almost 20 years. I started playing when I was only 11 or 12 and most players thought I was much older. I've always been a very well read person, mature beyond my years, and many people were surprised when they found out (a decade later) that I was so young when I started playing the game. Some of these people now have children that are the age I was when I started playing, or older.
Around the age of 18, I married a woman in game, who to this day I knew very little of. This is an *extremely* heavy roleplaying game. You can get banned for speaking "out of character". You're only allowed a few OOC whispers per month.
When I log in, I am no longer Anon#1. I am my character.
I've lead a normal life outside of playing a game for a majority of my life... college, post-grad, work a normal 9-5 and have a wife. She knows of the game and has no problem since none of it is real. I'm not flying to, I dunno, Colorado 'on business' every few months, you know?
I've never met my in-game wife in real life. We don't email, facebook, message, send pics of each other, etc. In a way, we're strangers.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't have feelings for her, but it's more that my character does. Her projection of herself has been a major influence on me my whole life.
I understand there is a person on the other end, but Anon#1 and Wife have never spoken Out Of Character (OOC) to each other more than a dozen times the last twelve years.
We've had children in the game, we've raised a family, own a home, have lifelong friends, everything. It's a completely separate reality.
Until I found out the other day in her first OOC whisper in years: "Anon#1, sorry for OOC but I'm dying. If I don't get a heart transplant I'll be gone within a month."
I don't know what to do. Do I go see her? I don't even know what she looks like. If she doesn't get her transplant do I go to the funeral? Does she have a husband, kids, family?
I'm crushed that a person is dying. It makes me wish over all these years that we stepped out of character and got to know each other. She doesn't know things like the sports I played in high school and college, hobbies, where I live, what I do for work, or anything else going on in my life. Likewise, I don't know what she does in real life -- if he has kids, what she does for a living, anything at all.
I'm still stunned by all of this. I know this is all confusing to people who haven't "become" a different person and lived that character's life.
I'm just... stunned. Someone who has played a major role in most of my adult life is dying but I don't even truly know her.
I don't know what the fuck to do. She's hardly been playing lately, she's gotta be depressed, she's dealing with end-of-life stuff and could be going through it all alone, I have no way to contact her unless she's in game.
She's going to fucking die and I'm never going to get to say goodbye the REAL WAY.
I realize now that I never even got to say hello 
I never thought I'd be in this situation in my life. I really don't care if people want to troll. I just need somewhere to get this out, and it doesn't bother me if nobody responds.
What the fuck 
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