by Jasmyn Zanzibar

In researching Relay for Life in Second Life (July 18-19) for an article, I eventually found myself in the American Cancer Society's sim. After a look around, I found the memorial. And I stood there for a long time. I was compelled to look up each name, each profile. And I am still shaken.

     In Second Life I have not known many in their real life as we call it. I have known them by their profiles first, usually...then a conversation, a shared activity...friendship. So, as I read these profiles, it was like meeting most anyone else in sl. Then the realization...they are no longer with us. Cancer has stolen them away.

     My dear aunt lost her struggle with pancreatic cancer almost two years ago. I sat with her as her life ebbed away. She never quit being the vibrant, life-loving person I'd always known her to be. She held on past anyone's thought of possibility. But finally, the cancer had its way, and she could go on no more.

     And as I read these profiles...the introductions to people's second lives, each a precious life that was taken by cancer, I'm struck once again by the simple brutality of it: That cancer can swoop into one's life and take it all...that one can be moving along through life, with its ups and downs, its fun and its work and its pleasures and pains, and then have it all interrupted, all changed, and even all taken away, by a fierce disease that has robbed this world of far, far too many. This is simply unacceptable.

     As I have researched this weekend's event, Relay for Life 2009, I have been amazed by the wonderful and creative work that has been done by all the Second Life volunteers. And I have been inspired. Its going to take everyone to win this war. I look forward to finding a meaningful way in which, in the coming year, I can be a part of the victory.