A few weeks ago I wrote a short article about the Second Life Day of Remembrance and the new Linden Memorial Park. The Park provides a place where the Second Life Community can spend time in quiet reflection or engage in activities that memorialize those SL members who enriched our lives in this medium, but then were lost to us when they died in real life. In that article I also commented on a particular feature of the Park, the flower garden. SL members could plant flowers there in tribute to their deceased SL friends and colleagues, and the named flowers would be a permanent memorial to their memory.
Shortly after I wrote that article, however, the option to plant new flowers in the garden was disabled when griefing problems arose. Several sailors asked me about the issue, so I spoke with Michael Linden and Brent Linden about reopening the garden; they both strongly agreed the Memorial Park should be a priority.
I’m therefore very happy to tell you the Garden is once again open, and all SL residents are welcome to stop by and plant a flower there in memory of a lost friend. The process is very simple. Just click on the small sign in front of the flower bed; a simple pop-up menu will appear explaining what to do. It takes less than a minute.
Today I dedicated a flower to Lachlan Campbell, a sailor I met soon after I joined Second Life. He let me crew with him a few times so I could learn about sailing, back when I was still figuring out how to walk. Lachlan was a voluble, talkative, wonderful person who expressed himself by typing in a rather overdone Scottish brough (grin). His accent-of style was actually a perfect fit for the bright red Scottish Lion Tako sails he flew.
Lach passed away several weeks ago. Over a two year battle with cancer, and while recovering from radical surgery and chemotherapy, he was there on the raceline sailing with us. Many sailors were touched by his grace, in small and large ways; we all mourn his passing, and are grateful for what he shared with us.
Earlier this evening, the Mowry Bay Cruising Club fleet held an excursion from Yamm in Nautilus City over to Fastnet Light in the center of Blake. A sizable group of sailors had a chance to discuss the RL and SL Fastnet with the person who brought it to life in SL, RJ Kikuchiyo. We all also got a chance to visit the simple granite block RJ installed there to commemorate the sailors who died in the 1979 Fastnet Race Disaster.
I kept thinking that the simple incription on the Fastnet monument applied just as genuinely to our friend and fellow sailor, Lachlan Campbell.
I liontaib Dé go ghcastar simm.
Lach, you will remain forever in our thoughts, and we will never forget.
_______________
Metaverse Sailing 
As long as we are on the subject of memorials, the Nantucket Yacht Club building was originally built in memory of a great contributor of SL Sailing as “The Djduerer Zou House.”
There is a lot of spirit in the Fastnet story. The people named on that block are representing truly remarkable folks from all over the world, and share the qualities of people we knew like Lachlan, Dj, and Mannie to name just a few.
Impermanence is a striking characteristic of SL, and to see a project like the Memory Garden take root is encouraging and I look forward to that sim becoming 100 in enough time, perhaps one day someone will add my name to that growing field.
We have today, this moment. How we spend that time in context of a blurry collection of pixels on a screen that can be considered the height of ephemeral experience, this is truly valuable to me.
Jane, this is the first I’ve heard about Lachlan 😦 I’m soooo sorry. I never knew anything was up. A sad day.