I am not the most frequent poster here, but still this is where I spent many hours reading stuff. So I thought it is appropriate to write about this as well, as I have taken a mission to make sure my wife is remembered.

Sunday 20th May, my lovely and awesome wife Sandra Søbyskogen passed away,31 years old, after living with brain cancer for almost 4 years. We have been together since 2010, and got married in 2015 in Austria (where she is originally from, before she moved to Norway with me in 2012). She was the bravest and most fearless and kind person Ive ever known, and I am trying to figure out what the hell to do now.

She was very into pinball, sortof my fault, but we shared this passion and made many trips together to tournaments in Norway, Austria, Sweden and Netherlands.
She owned a Sopranos, along with my Walking dead premium and game of thrones pro in our apartment in Oslo. She is missed by the whole Oslo Pinball Club also due to her great baking skills, bringing cookies and cakes to almost every monthly tournament she attended.

We actually won The Walking Dead premium in pinball raffle during our honeymoon on Gran Canaria. Fun memories.
I thought Id just post some photos here in remembrance.

I had hoped to travel to Pinburgh next year with her, and I will still go and play my ass off in honour of her.

I miss her so much.

Morten

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Her initials was SMS. She was so excited for it because her full name was Sandra Maria Søbyskogen. So a little funny with it making up SMS.
thanks.

Ill take you up on that next year, thanks!

And you should hear the infernal screams she made when she lost the ball in tournaments...amazed she did not get a yellow card for disturbing the competitors on her sides

After the operation and diagnosis/prognosis in 2014, I believe we chose to just live and experience life, enjoy life and eachother. So the actual fight was really the six weeks before she died when the body started shutting down. Still, she refused to be broken, and for four weeks she was humping around our apartment with a crutch and me and her sisters help, often going some detours to the kitchen on the way back to the couch. She was so amazing. I hope I can be as strong and fearless in life.

This will absolutely be done, when this first phase has been passed. Planning to donate the tournament fee and STHS to the brain tumor organisation.

Thank you.. we have had only good experiences with the two brain surgeries she had, 2014 and 2017. The latter was an "awake" surgery. I just have to repeat, she was the bravest person i have ever met.

Oh man, I dont really have words... this and all responses are so overwhelming. Thank you so much Robin.

Thank you!!

I was trying to go through my archive of photos over the years, to find more pinball photos of her and us and stories related to those, but it was a little too tough for me to do yesterday since I moved back into the apartment this weekend. But as soon as I get a mind break, I will dive into our small sea of memories and see what I find!

Some photos from our trip to Borås Pinball Open in sweden, in 2015, this is where we first got to try out The Walking Dead pinball, as you can see she was midly excited. We loved to watch the Walking dead show. Little did we know that I would win a machine in a raffle on our honeymoon 4 months later, which I upgraded to a premium.

Borås is also the place that made Sandra decide that Johnny Mnemonic would never be allowed into our apartment.

Also, Borås has got this creepy bunny statue outside the Quality Grand Hotel.Always watching.

We have also always proritized one evening dinner for only us when we are out travelling with a group to pinball tournament,always finding awesome places to dine.

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Appreciated! I knocked in a tribute myself on IMDNLE

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Life is pushing forward, whatever I may want or need. At least whenever I go to sleep, I wake up again the next morning.

I have been doing some minor renovating in our apartment (still saying "our" in many social settings), and decided to swap the pinball/gaming/music room with the bedroom, as to better use the space. So I had the carpenter put down the ceiling, added LED strips around, got the walls painted and new floor laid, and got the pinball machines set up today. Over the next weeks I will enhance the room, and getting the music studio up and running, starting the project of processing it all and hoping to be able to finish writing a memorial album for/to/about Sandra and me, and we shall see which roads it leads down.

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That would actually have been fuckin awesome! Great idea. Dunno where to look but

I made an outline today from one of Sandras awesome poses on a pinball tournamnet. Will need to refine it for later, but for now to printing a t-shirt for my upcoming trip to Austria for Austria Pinball Open, this will be sufficient
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Im going to post some video updates on a more frequent basis through my band channel, regarding some musical plans for processing this and remembering and honoring Sandra. Im going to Austria (her home country) tomorrow to meet some friends of us,meeting her parents and family and also participate in Austrian Pinball Open. Made this first video update last night:

wow, what a weekend. So much adrenalin, nerves, highs and lows, little sleep, much bier and many people. No outlane post rubbers, no ball save, tilt tight as ....something very tight.

After screwing up and not making the playoffs in Austrian Pinball Open the last two years, I finally managed to break the curse this weekend.
5th place in qualifications, ended 9th place in main and 12th in side, out of almost 90 players.

Very proud of my own effort and at the same time it hurts that my dear Sandra could not be there, but I did what i could to honour her and make her proud.

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Have had to deal with getting through each day, but finally i decided on a grave stone which I thought was beautiful and also unique. Not pinball stuff on it, but yggdrasil engraved and some words in norwegian and german. Laquered in silver. Also, winter is coming here in norway.

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Today, or maybe yesterday, 14th March, was Sandra's birthday, so it was a special day. I managed to somehow turn it into a mentality of celebrating the life she had, instead of what I did not get, and had a nice evening out with my best friend at our local pub. I want to post a very describing photo, of what summarized her the way I knew her; Zombies, Metal, Vikings and pinball! And Im sure we all can associate with the feeling of making a fruitless prayer to the pinball gods when the ball drains in a reasonably unfair manner

I miss her so much, but I am so grateful for the 8 years we got together.

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I read and appreciate all the words here, so thankful!

This coming saturday 20th July, I am having a memorial tournament for her, actually 2 tournaments, one early and one later in the evening. I have bought some trophies which has the outline from her great pinball pose, so the winners will be able to take something memorable home. I will also do an honest attempt at streaming the qualifying and the finals at RedRoomPinball on twitch Link to come.

The games are set up and ready Now just hoping for the GOT code to come before the weekend!

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The memorial tournament was a real success, lots of nice players and a good atmosphere of remembrance
Here are the winners from the second tournament that day, me to the left winning the 2nd place

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Dont know if "Thank you" is the right answer, but it means alot to me that you feel it is inspiring.
Of course, I have really bad moments in between, thinking about her every day, and some days it feels almost hopeless to get through. But it helps me doing things and organizing events in her memory, and also getting back to work, music and pinball and friends makes the days pass better.

I am going through the days,weeks and months, working 60 - 80 % as much as I manage, and life is in its way going forward. What really gives me energy and a feeling of being alive, is actually competitive pinball tournaments. Thats the only time I am 100 % in the here and now, in the world under glass. The exitement, the nerves, the anger, it all boils down to competitive pinball.

This weekend I am arranging another memorial tournament, and players from sweden and finland are coming, as well as ppl from different parts of norway.
Hopefully we will not cancel because of Corona, we will see the next days but as of now I hope to run it. We will be max 25 - 30 players so..

I got some personalized trophies for the three tournaments, and will supply additional prizes with some austrian wine and some rock and morty and game of thrones (both of which she loved) prizes. Scattering photos of her life and friends around the prize table. Looking forward to this!

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3 years pass so fast it is very scary, both good and bad. It is also heartbreaking to think of what she could have been part of experiencing these last three years, and years to come. I made some reflections on this and the music om working on.

Fuck this life. And embrace it. Bleh.

Yeah! its really nice to see it, and every time it occurs it makes me happy
The devil's in the details

June 1st is coming up fast, and on that day in 2018 many friends and family took part in the funeral ceremony for Sandra. It had many beautiful and melancholic musical performances, and after 3 years it feels right to share some of them with others, both because it is beautiful renditions and also as a way for me to let it go. Not perfect sound or video, but I still feel the emotion and the direness shines through.

1st song: "With or without you", performed on cello, opening the ceremony. This song was also played in our wedding in Austria, as Sandra was led to the altar by her father, so I saw it fitting to open with this.

Thanks for your comments <3

The second musical performance from sandras funeral was "Distance" performed on cellos.
It was written from me to her as a doom metal song during our first two years having a long distance relationship Norway - Austria (2010-2012), and the cellos in this rendition really brings out the soul of the song.

This song is also being rerecorded and featured in the upcoming Death Of Giants album, my doom metal project. Looking forward to getting it out there

Thank you, she was <3
We got married after.
She was diagnosted (brutally, i came home one night august 2014 and found her totally unconscious on the bed, no responce, and in a kindof stuck loop of epileptic seizure due to a constant pressure in her brain due to the tumor), that was fucking traumatic. But, we got married the year after, i wanted to do that and also show my commitment to her despite having a prognosis of 2-5 years life expectancy

The third musical piece performed in Sandra's funeral is something I think many recognize: "The Rains of Castamere", from Game of Thrones., performed with cellos.

Sabine Weidinger, her sister, made a collection of images from Sandras life which was shown on screen while the music played, and I added this into this video also.

Both Sandra and I loved Game of Thrones (tv-series and book series), and I knew I wanted Rains of Castamere played on cellos in her funeral. For me cello's are the saddest instrument I know. Im sure she would have loved this rendition of The Rains of Castamere, it is a deeply brooding and melancholic piece. We were supposed to see the Music of Game of Thrones performed live in Vienna in 2018

Some moments stay with you forever. The last song of Sandra's funeral was Epilogue, written and sung by Roy Khan, and it wraps up the end of our journey as best as it could. Piano played flawlessly by Gunnar-M Gudmundsen.

It is a tragic but, in its own way, a beautiful, ending to what should be a full life with a family and adventures. But despite all, I choose to believe she, and we, lived to the max.