Memorials for Gamers

After Michel Koiter died suddenly at age 19, the video game company he and his twin brother René worked for wanted to pay tribute to him.

Blizzard Entertainment art director Samwise Didier, came to [René] with an innovative proposal: He wanted to erect a monument to Michel in World of Warcraft, most likely the first permanent memorial in gaming history. René agreed, and in late 2004, a stone obelisk engraved with Michel’s initials, MK, appeared in World of Warcraft. Known as the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior, it features the body of an orc—Michel’s chosen avatar in the game. In a recent update, Blizzard added an angelic figure known as a “spirit healer” to watch over the obelisk. “It was an epic gesture,” René said.

Slate's Michael Walters tells this story in a moving essay about digital memorials in the world of gaming.

In the past 10 years, gaming companies and individual players alike have endeavored to preserve the legacies of lost players within the games they loved. Across World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Guild Wars 2, and dozens of other large-world massively multiplayer online role-playing games, hundreds of shrines have popped up honoring deceased players. For close friends and family members of players preserved in video games, those memorials offer a way not only to reflect on their loved ones but also on the community that cared for them. A shrine stretches far beyond the digital plot of land it occupies. It reaches into the homes of hundreds of quasi-strangers, bound together by their love for a friend they likely never met in person.

Cookie Recipe Tombstone: Over Her Dead Body

‘Double Tap for Caleb’: Mourning a 13-Year-Old YouTube Star on Instagram

"We all deal with tragedy in different ways, and Instagram hashtags represent something that’s not as much new as it is newly visible. Mourning hashtags make it possible not only to easily share grief, but to view collective grief all at once, in a backlit tapestry of public despair. #RIPCaleb is a sad place to scroll through, and one made sadder by the lack of information about Caleb’s sudden death. Commenters—who must be confused about the concept of death to begin with—are using some of the most popular posts as forums in which to share their own theories, such as:



“He had a panick attack, his heart stopped beating [emojis] everyone sub to them”
“Did he have hart problems?”
“people are saying it’s because he had an anxiety attack and went to sleep then he never woke up beaus of heart failure or something. but that’s just what everyone is saying.”



After spending the morning viewing post after post about this tragic death, there’s one I just can’t shake: a short video uploaded by a girl who appears to be a good friend of Caleb’s sister Annie. It’s a heartbreaking video, and one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen on the internet. In it, she confirms the rumors of Caleb’s death to her 10.6 thousand followers, offers emotional support, and shares an optimistic sentiment about Caleb’s legacy.

It’s captioned, simply, “@presshandstands”—the username of Annie Bratayley."



‘Double Tap for Caleb’: Mourning a 13-Year-Old YouTube Star on Instagram

Until We Meet Again -- A Mother's Memorial to her Son

"Lament" by Edna St. Vincent Millay, recited by The Wordman

When I Die by Lisa Bonchek Adams

Lisa Bonchek Adams writes movingly about how she wants to be remembered. Here are two excerpts: When I die don’t say I “fought a battle.” Or “lost a battle.” Or “succumbed.” Don’t make it sound like I didn’t try hard enough, or have the right attitude, or that I simply gave up. ... Instead, remember me and let my words live on. Tell stories of something good I did. Give my children a kind word. Let them know what they meant to me. That I would have stayed forever if I could. Don’t try to comfort my children by telling them I’m an angel watching over them from heaven or that I’m in a better place: There is no better place to me than being here with them. They have learned about grief and they will learn more. That is part of it all.

Crossings: Helping Families Care for the Dead

Who Owns the Dead? | The New Republic

The days Alison spent at home before the cremation were both “tragic and beautiful,” Knox said. “It was such a comfort.” And slowly, in the years following Alison’s death, her parents found renewed mission. Sanders, who was released from the psychiatric hospital after about two weeks, left his job in commercial litigation, and began offering his services to other families involved in airbag lawsuits. He began, also, to lobby the government to force automakers to install safer airbags and to require them to place warning labels in cars telling parents not to allow their kids to ride in the front seat.

Knox underwent a transformation as well: She founded a nonprofit called Crossings, and became one of the first people in the country dedicated to helping the families and friends of the deceased work through the emotionally taxing, logistically tricky, and sometimes unpleasant process of caring for a dead body at home. She read everything she could, reached out to others involved in the nascent cause, and began offering her services as a kind of consultant—advising both on consumer funeral rights and on a new (really, ancient) kind of grieving. Caring for the dead, Knox said, requires a “fierce determination” and a willingness to follow your loved one to a place where few modern Americans dare to go.

Her Mother's Last Wish Was to Have Her Ashes Shot Into the Sky

In the Washington Post Magazine, Janna Bialek writes about her mother's death.

Finally, it was time to say goodbye. Each of the four children took a small blowtorch, lit for us by our spouses. Miraculously and without incident, we walked up to the four fuses of the rockets whose forward canisters held her and lit the ends, then walked away. Successive whooshes came from the four rockets that carried her ashes into the Iowa sky. A long white tail of pinpoint lights rose and detonated the explosives, but the canisters holding her didn’t explode until the third and fourth stages, popping around with little white screams. The smoky, carbon-smelling clouds rained down motes over the grass, the driveway, on my shoulders and in my hair. We hugged tight and felt the shift.