A month ago, my wife and I were involved in a bizarre accident. An impaired driver crossed the Bay Bridge in San Francisco heading the wrong way and struck us head on at high speed. I was barely hurt, but my wife suffered terrible injuries and almost died. She won't walk again for a long time.

The IGN community responded like nothing I've ever seen.Friends from IGN came, came to the hospital and brought light and love and kindness with them, delivering prayers and friendship and the precious gift of company, which in hours of despair is often the richest gift of all. They came bringing help in so many ways. But it wasn't just my IGN co-workers who gave me help. It was you, the community, that bestowed some of the most precious gifts.I haven't had much time for counting, but I've received what seems like thousands of messages of goodwill, thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes from people in the IGN community. Emails, letters, Tweets, and Facebook messages poured in during the weeks after the accident. I've never experienced anything like it, a torrent of goodwill which still hasn't ceased. And let me tell you, during the horrible, lonely moments, those messages are often the difference between hope and despair, the shift in the balance between giving up and keeping on.It was two friends from IGN, Ryan Palmer and Chris Abbott, who conspired to create the GoFundMe campaign which has helped keep me solvent through the past few weeks. Greg Miller, Colin Moriarty, Ryan McCaffrey, and many others at IGN drew attention to that fund, soliciting gifts from hundreds of community members. Kind, generous contributors, most of whom I've never met, came together and changed my life. I don't deserve this charity, and I'm overwhelmed by it.We talk a lot about our community here inside IGN, about the thoughts of our readers and community contributors and the content of our comment sections. My fellow editors care deeply about our work, and we pay careful attention to responses of our audience. Sometimes the comments can be pretty harsh, and we get discouraged. But the kindness I experienced from the multitude of people gladdens my heart, and firmly convinces me that our community is made up of a tremendous group of wonderful human beings who I am continually privileged to encounter."Thank you" is inadequate. I wish I knew how to give back more. Right now, I'm weak, but you have made me stronger. You have changed my life for the better in the worst hour I've ever experienced. I will not cease to be grateful.To tell you the truth, life is still pretty awful. Recovery takes a really long time form the kind of injuries Angie sustained, and there are tremendous uncertainties about our future. But because of the special human beings in the IGN community who decided to help me, I'm never going to be alone during all of this. That, my friends, is an encouraging thought.