Wagner James Au / New World Notes

It's the first Coronavirus-related death I'm aware of to hit the Second Life user community, but it certainly won't be the last: Longtime SLer Uccello Poultry reportedly succumbed in real life to COVID-19 recently.

I say "reportedly", but this news comes from Uccello herself. Before she died, she wrote a number of letters to friends and loved ones in her hospital bed, on her iPad. After she passed, her real life brother, who also plays Second Life as CC Columbo, discovered these messages in her iCloud account.

And so he posted her message to her Second Life community on her long-running blog, The Poultry Report. It's also a memoir of her troubled childhood in real life, and a tribute to the SLers she met in the virtual world and who became her adoptive family, and then nurtured her in both realities:

At Lesbos I met my soon-to-be sister, Threshin. She helped me become a strong (if willful) and confident woman over the subsequent years. Always encouraging and loving, I learned that I didn’t need to cling to my brother. I also met my wife, Angela, there. Marriages in SL are real, if you let them be so.

I’m also proud to say I was a citizen of Bay City, the BEST community in Second Life. So many close friends, especially Marianne, Pygar, Rachel, Roc, and the eternal Ever Dreamscape. This was truly the life I did not have growing up. And grow up I did. The strength I gained from being accepted into the city and becoming a contributor (the year I was Miss Bay City was the best year in any of my lives) led to me becoming a productive citizen in Real Life. Getting a job, paying taxes, and becoming responsible for others. Just like a real person!

… Take my Love. I have plenty for all of you. Perhaps I’ll see you all on the Big Grid and we can swap stories. I hear there’s no Grid goo and the Feed there works. Until then, there’s so much I haven’t done. Go out and do it for me.

Much much more here. Much thanks to Dusty Jamberoo (Michael Shaw IRL), who also counts himself as among Uccello's friends, and has his own remembrances of her:

"Back in the old days, I had the 512 [sqm] parcel next door in Nangrim. My neighbor CC stopped by one day to tell me that his sister would be coming in soon, and needed special care.

"Shortly after, Uccie started coming by for visits, like a deer coming to the edge of a clearing, ready to bolt at the least sudden movement.

"Time passed, and she would pop in from time to time (memorably as a jaguar once), and she would tell me of her adventures. Then when her blog started, I would tell her that she had a voice after all, as strong and clear a writer’s voice as I had heard in years.

"My heart is broken that [RL name] is gone from us, but I will always treasure the memory of her friendship, and marvel at the life the built from the pains and sorrows that fortune dealt her. Peace always, little sister, and love till the end of time."