When Eshi Otawara decided to make Glenn, last April, she was not in Second Life, but in the aisle of her neighborhood grocery store. That’s where the irony of the household chore kicked in, reminding her of the husband she lost, two years before.
“I felt so pointless in there,” she remembers. “In the store shopping... for WHOM!?” Being there only reminded her of the joy she had preparing meals for them both. “[B]ut now,” she realized, “it is only me.” So she stopped short, and simply began sobbing right there. (The manager discretely checked on her, “Saw I was not about to blow anything up, nodded and left.”)
In early April of 2006, Eshi Otawara lost her real life husband in an unexpected death. The last time she saw him alive was when he bent over their living room couch to kiss her goodnight. (She’d dozed off in front of the television.) She woke the next morning to the ringing of Glenn’s cellphone nearby, and stumbled sleepy-eyed and a touch annoyed into their bedroom, to hand it to him.
“[H]e was laying there with his eyes open, and his hand in the air-- reaching up towards me.” She said “Hey, PHONE”, but Glenn just kept staring. She grabbed his hand, and it fell. Some sunlight was cutting through the curtains, onto his cheek, and Eshi realized it was ash gray. His eyes were now an intense blue, bluer than she’d ever seen.
“My mind,” as she puts it now, “split in two.” Her husband died on Saturday; Eshi Otawara didn’t sleep until the following Tuesday.
So memories like these wracked her in the grocery store, on the second anniversary of Glenn’s passing. Since then, Eshi had become a metaverse artist of some acclaim, creating a concert hall made of light, and an evening gown made of fire, among other wonders. Which is probably why her next stop after the store was her computer.
“I felt so powerless and alone,” as she recalls, “that I told myself, ‘You know, it might be a sick thing to do, a pathetic thing to do, whatever-- but if I cannot have this guy in real life, I will MAKE him in Second Life.'”
Eshi with Glenn in real life-- and as Glenn, in Second Life
And that’s why the memory of the late Dr. Glenn J. Morris, PhD (1944-2006), martial arts master, author, and renaissance man, sometimes makes brief visits in the metaverse. His widow re-created him as best she could-- rather, Eshi Otawara remade herself, transforming her avatar to look like her husband. And when she was done remaking him, she took Glenn on a tour through Second Life.
She took him skydiving in Straylight. She took him to Ruta Maya for a butterfly ride. “I get to do things with his pixel body that he'd be doing if he were alive,” as she puts it. She even gave him a flat belly, something she’d known he’d wanted for some time. “I am sure he was cracking up in whatever form he exists now,” she says.
I ask Eshi what it’s like to become the avatar version of Glenn.
“Like he is hugging me,” she says. “I miss his face most. I used to stare at him all the time.”
But being Glenn in Second Life is a rare thing, done only, as she describes it, “When I really really really really miss him.”
I ask Eshi if she’d ever thought of turning Glenn into an “alt”, a secondary avatar she could control from another computer, while Eshi remained in-world, as herself. That way, in a certain sense, they could be in Second Life together.
“Yes I did,” she tells me, then tears up. “It is a scary thought. It wouldn't be him and me... it would be me and me.”
But her main concern about that idea seems to be closure.
“Maybe if I do that I'll 'get over him',” she says. But she doesn’t want that, at least not yet.
“Grief is a strange thing,” she explains. “It is not that you cannot let go-- it is that you don't want to. You want to make yourself miserable....you want to not let them go.” It’s why she spurns the thought of anti-depressants. “I don't want to drug myself and pretend I have solved things on an emotional level,” Eshi tells me. “I want to solve them. And solutions come when one is ready-- there is no need to chemically create an illusion of problems solved.”
Which is why Eshi mostly keeps the copy of her husband’s avatar tucked in a folder in her inventory, the place where Second Life Residents store items they don’t necessarily want out in the world, but want to still hold on to.
“I can live with him being gone,” Eshi Otawara tells me. “That's I think why I don't want his avatar and my avatar meet. A part of me feels like that is history."
You know, it might be a sick thing to do, a pathetic thing to do, whatever--
No it's not. It's the sweetest thing I have seen anyone ever do with the technology that is Second Life. And I am happy to read that it helps you during those hard moments, two years on, when the rest of the world expects you to be 'over it'.
Posted by: Laetizia Coronet | Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 12:06 PM
Eshi is a soulful character, and we're lucky to have her in this world with us.
Posted by: Douglas Story | Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 12:39 PM
I've got a box in my inventory labeled Do Not Open. Can't bring myself to delete what's inside it.
Grieving happens in its own time. Eshi, don't let anyone push you to rush it. Only you know when you're done.
Posted by: Storm Thunders | Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 02:13 PM
Everyone deals with grief in their own way. A year ago, when a dear friend retreated forever to RL, I chose to write a eulogy in my blog.
http://secondedition.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/one-of-my-luckiest-days/
Posted by: Stone Semyorka | Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 03:12 PM
I know it's not quite the same, because my husband is still very much alive, but there are times during the day that I need him to deal with something in-world, and he cannot because he is at work. So I log into SL with his account and take care of whatever needs doing that I need his avatar to do. (Sometimes I make him give me all of his money!)
It is a very strange feeling, being Alphonsus. I look at the screen and I see him instead of me, even though I am the one using the mouse and the arrows to move him around. It doesn't feel like ME, it feels like HIM. I am making him move, but he is still separate from me. And it can be comforting to see him, because I am lonely during the day and I miss him.
It does become confusing however, when someone IMs him. I feel compelled to confess my identity behind the keyboard - to let them know that I am not him, even though it is him that they see.
Enshi, I am so sorry for your loss. And I do indeed understand the comfort derived from accessing an avatar that represents your husband. I would be doing the same thing, in your place.
Princess Ivory
Posted by: Princess Ivory | Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 03:27 PM
Poignant and beautifully presented.
Posted by: kanomi | Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 07:48 PM
Anyone who has ever met Eshi knows how special she is and reading this brought tears to my eyes as well as a smile at the thought of her celebrating his spirit by doing the beautiful things here inworld. Thank you for sharing this with all of us.
Posted by: Eladrienne | Friday, May 23, 2008 at 01:11 AM
I understand.
It brings him closer to you.
It's love. It's grief. It's love.
/me hugs Eshi.
This is a beautifully written article, by the way. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Posted by: Seraphine | Friday, May 23, 2008 at 07:08 AM
It's inspiring story about two unique people and one of them still carries on their spirit, their ideas and their values in very creative and innovative way. Thank you Eshi for sharing and keep on creating/fighting/working. Hugs Ora
Posted by: Ora Pera | Friday, May 23, 2008 at 10:03 AM
Nothing in Second Life in my time since '05 has moved me, untill I read this.
Wonderful, is what I want to say, but it seems a strange word to use... I dont know what to say, except that I'm moved.
Thank you.
Posted by: Darkfoxx | Friday, May 23, 2008 at 11:19 AM
The next time students deride SL, claiming it lacks the emotional engagement of RL, I will show this to them.
Thank you for sharing what must be a difficult story for Eshi to tell.
Posted by: Ignatius Onomatopoeia | Friday, May 23, 2008 at 02:58 PM
The pattern we each call 'I' is commonly thought to reside in one specific body, respectively. But personal identity is more complex than that.
The pattern known as 'I' is copied imperfectly by the brain's ability to perform higher-order intentionality and theories of mind. The more time you spend with a person, the better you get at modelling that person inside your mind. Their 'I' becomes part of your society of mind, just as yours becomes incorporated into theirs.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, 'a solitary human being is a contradiction in terms. You are a human being precisely because of relationships; you are a relational being or you are nothing'.
I believe it is fundamentally WRONG to consider the pattern we call 'I' as being generated- can ONLY be generated- by a specific individual. It is not. 'I' exists as multiple copies spread across our social networks, passing information back and forth across that network. Without our loved ones, there can be no 'I'. It is obvious, if you think about it.
Therefore, when each of us dies, we are not gone. Our 'I' pattern remains in the social network we left behind, fading in time as our loved ones each meet their own end.
The brain of Eshi's husband stored and processed the highest resolution pattern of his 'I', make not mistake about that. Eshi has a lower resolution pattern but it is THERE in her brain, nevertheless.
It will be a long time yet before her husband is absolutely 'gone', and certainly not while her brain is running its lower-resolution model of his 'I'.
Um..however, I do not intend my words to belittle her loss. I am not very good at finding words that express appropriate understanding of grief. I just wanted Eshi to know that her idea of maintaining a memory of her husband in SL is NOT creepy or strange. It is sweet and quite in keeping with what I think is a propper understanding of how that mysterious pattern 'I' is created and maintained.
Posted by: Extropia DaSilva | Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 03:16 AM
/me hugs Eshi.
Posted by: Faerie | Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 04:39 AM
There are no easy responses to this. We all deal with loss in our own ways, in our own time.
I do have to wonder what it will be like in the next few years when we can re-create AI representations of our loved ones that might be able to walk around the living room in holographic form, respond to questions and converse in their own voice, etc.
What of the will of the person who is dying, who might not want to be "rezzed" in this way? Now THAT is a double-entendre.
Philosophizing aside, I as well send a /hug Eshi's way.
Posted by: rikomatic | Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 09:37 AM
Eshi is very dear to me as she is to many people. We are amazed by the lifeforce in her as well as her powerful creativity and beautiful young womanhood. (And I say "young" because, despite all she has been through, she still maintains the "joie de vivre" of being young: brashness, boldness, and strength.)
When I saw her movie about Glenn, I cried. Her grief was apparent. But it also showed her resiliency as she sent her dear beloved husband on a flight through her world in SL and showed him where she is and where she is going.
It is a great gift she has shared with us, a slice of her mind and her heart.
Posted by: Harper Beresford | Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 01:41 PM
Its by far the most emotional thing I have read that connects sl to rl or vice versa. Its the only way to be - completely in love. Eshi is a strong woman cos she can speak abt it and not bottle it up like most of us do believing if we r quiet its ok, when it actually is not. Ty eshi reading ur story gave me answers hope and whole lot of understanding to asses my personal life.
Hugzz to a special person like u!
Posted by: Sa Charlan | Friday, July 25, 2008 at 07:12 AM