Writin_Reg: World Explorer, Simmer, Friend
Since September 2011, EA forum regular and veteran Simmer Writin_Reg's has battled to rid herself of leukaemia.
Reggie seemed to be fighting it for as long as we'd known her. All the same, there was always that indestructible quality to her - whatever was happening to her body, her will to continue and to contribute to the Simming community she was a part of seemed more than a match for whatever health brickbats were thrown at her. Every set back had been met with progress.
In an era when more people now survive cancers than die from them, we were confident that somehow Reggie would make it.
She always seemed to.
But on 22nd November came the sickening bombshell.
Only two weeks since she'd been told there was nothing more medically they could do, Writin_Reg left our world and joined the Simmers in the Elysian Fields.
One of the last links to the very beginnings of the Sims series.
To her family and friends, Regina Coburn was a loving wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. To those of us in the Simming community she's been a part of since the literal start, Writin_Reg was, is - and always will be - a legend.
An enthusiast and one of those rarities in the gaming community of being as articulate as she was passionate about her interests, who with her usual fine turn of phrase could make even the most hidebound think twice about what they were doing, saying or even thinking.
Many a player ready to give up on the game gave it another shot as a result of her help and advice which on many occasions proved far better than those from the 'official' channels, right till the end.
At 6.54am, Thursday 16th August 2012, Writin_Reg posted a poem on the EA forum Create-A-World forum, entitled ‘Not a world, but what I create’:
Life is:
The years we’ve had a Sims forum
Helping, being helped; gifting, being gifted.
Bonds made as strong as families,
Strangers feel as heartfelt friends.
Life is:
The hopes we’ve wished
The Dreams we’ve shared
The tears we’ve dried
The HUGZ we’ve verbally sent.
Life is:
The days we’ve Laughed
The Nights we’ve cried
The Love we’ve given
The Fears we’ve soothed
Life is: All
Friendships we’ve made
Wisdom we’ve learned
Kindness and Empathy we’ve shown
Sympathy we’ve offered
Prayers and help given
Life is:
The memories, a certain smile, an eye’s twinkle
It’s not our success or failures, our wealth or lack of.
Who we knew or didn’t know, or even who we are
It’s the Imprint we leave on hearts and minds,
Long after we are gone.
By Writin_Reg – August 16th 2012
It’s one very big imprint she’s left on many hearts and minds in a global gaming community.
We'd give all we have to have saw her granted have even one more year of life and Simming.
Thank you and bless you for those years you did give us, Reggie.
You will truly be missed more than you will ever know.