#writin_reg

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.

We missed this last night as it was Dark O’Clock over here when she updated her page.

A step in the right direction, and relief all round that it appears to be working - and that her white cell levels have returned to an acceptable level.

Why?

We'll let her tell you herself.

Those of you who have been around will remember her earlier battles with leukaemia - which resulted in one of the more profound moments on the EA forum (with Evil_One).

Our Reggie's probably one of the last to admit it, and she's definitely the last to ever think it accords her special status over any other Simmers (plumbob knows we've disagreed with her often enough!), but in Simming terms she is - and will always remain - a big deal, one of the last connections to the very genesis of the game in the last century (yep, the last century - doesn't that make you all feel old when we're nearly a fifth of the way through the twenty first one!) with Will Wright, as well as one of its saviours for her battle against SecureROM which could easily have killed the series stone dead before there was ever a Sims 3 - let alone Sims 4.

But beyond all that, she's one of the all round bloody good sorts along with Rflong7/13 that made us fall in love with the crazy, silly, funny and yes sometimes exasperating people in the Simming community in the first place.

We admit this is gonna feel a bloody long day until we see the news one way or another from Reggie.

Please God/Allah/Yahweh/Frith/Grand Controller of the Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff (that ought to cover all the bases...), just this once let it be good news for one of the good guys for a change.

Kick us in the teeth instead if a deal clincher's required (you can't have our souls, they've already been sold to sixteen daedric prince and princesses in Skyrim and it's already in the courts as Eris is also claiming first dabs on them anyway from the Before-Life as part of her divorce settlement with you).

Please please please, just let it be good news.