I didn’t even know her well, had only exchanged a few random weblog comments awhile back. But I knew her second and third and fourth-hand, from her interactions with people, from the way people talked with her and talked about her, from the way she fit into and enriched the Great Conversation in the part I hang out in. And yesterday, when I found out, I was too numb to say much of anything in that community at all.
As I said to someone privately, I know all sorts of reasons that the world is still a good place, that death, even tragic death, still validates life, that Rheta having lived, even her child having lived that very brief life, is a good thing that should make us happy. And still inside it hurts, and parts of me are just saying “no!”.
Marx Dudek has put together a video tribute from various of the weblogs and memorials and memories that people have been sharing about Rheta. It helps.
Filed under: Second Life | Tagged: Rheta Shan, secondlife |
Dale Innis's Weblog 
Dale, you are a freak. How can you call yourself a scientist, and believe any of these outrageous tales about this staged “death”?
Honestly, I would have thought you’d simply remain tactfully silent about this monstrosity as an RP gone wrong. But to chime in with it and link to video tributes and tell us that you are “number” — you have a worse case of the virtual bends that I would have guessed, and that explains a lot.
Disgraceful. You are complicit.
I’m not quite sure what you mean, Prokofy. Except that you don’t like me, of which I’m unfortunately well aware.
It’s certainly not impossible that Rheta (Rheta’s typist, if you prefer) did not actually die in a tragic accident. We don’t have definite evidence one way or the other. I would not stake my life that it’s true, but given the evidence at hand I do believe that it’s true. And that belief left me with sorrow, and with numbness. And Marx’s video tribute did help.
I gather that you don’t believe it’s true, and of course that’s your right. I’m not sure what it is that you think is disgraceful, or in what you think I’m complicit. I don’t actually care, either, what you think, or why, at least at the moment.
Even if it’s “just” someone’s SL friend , alt/fake or not doesn’t make it less valid to be mourning over.
P.S. Maybe you should ban trolls?
Thanks, Chad, I agree on the validity of mourning.
My first impulse was to remove the negative posting as inappropriate for the context and hurtful to people already hurting; but then I wised up :) and realized that Rheta’s friends are not going to be coming to my obscure weblog for comfort or otherwise anyway.
I don’t think that comment is trolling strictly speaking; it wasn’t done specifically to generate a negative response.; it’s what the poster actually thinks, even if it was expressed rudely.
I think I might need to write down some rules for the weblog, though, now that my international fame is spreading. :)