Farewell to Shadowlands – RIP Sumar Morgan

Yesterday the sad news made the rounds that Sumar Morgan has passed away on Sunday, August 23, 2009. She will be missed and remembered by many in Second Life as she touched the lives of countless people who found their way to The Shelter in Isabel, a place designed to provide new SLers with a friendly, safe environment in which they could make friends and learn their ropes.

Thanks to Velveeta Biedermann for the picture

Sumar had been active in other virtual worlds even before coming to SL in May 2004, so she had a wealth of experience that she generously shared with others right from the beginning. When The Shelter was founded a few months later, her passion for teaching and guiding became part of its mission.

By the time I came to SL in October 2006, Sumar was a formidable figure at the Shelter, the Grande Dame who by her mere presence deflected any attempts to turn the place even temporarily into the kind of sleazy, cussing, griefing-infested club that was so often found in SL. At the same time, she did what she had always done – pouring out landmarks, freebies, information and advice from her cornucopia of experience on each and every newbie who, like me, stumbled into the Shelter, glad to have found a secure foothold in this overwhelming, confusing new world. At the time, Sumar and Onionpencil were the Shelter fixtures who personified that foothold.

It seems ironic and somewhat unjust, from today’s perspective, that Sumar was sometimes faced with criticisms of being too strict in terms of keeping The Shelter a clean, safe place. After I had become a Shelter Volunteer myself a little later, I found myself at times siding with those who advocated a more relaxed approach. So I had my disagreements with Sumar, as will happen in any organization where people from widely different backgrounds are working together. It shames me to say that I haven’t always been as kind and respectful in expressing them as I should have been.

But in time, she taught me to respect her greatly through the sheer generosity of her forgiveness. She wasn’t one to hold a grudge, and whenever I came to her to apologize, she shook the past off her shoulders and made reconciliation with such ease and grace that it was a refreshing relief. To this generosity of spirit I owe the fact that I was finally numbered among her friends.

In September 2008, when it became known that she had been diagnosed with cancer, she took it as another opportunity to inspire deep respect in all who knew her. She took up the challenge with an indomitable spirit. She knew the disease might win in the end, but she was not going to give in without a fight, and she was not going to let it take away her dignity. Above all, her faith gave her the assurance that even if she might be defeated, it wouldn’t be the final word.

Her battle with cancer forced her to gradually fade out of the day-to-day affairs at the Shelter. The last time I talked with her, back in February, she was in great spirits, joking about the short white fuzz that desperately tried to grow back on her head after radiation. She was full of optimism that she had beaten this thing. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

I know that Sumar was fond of the works of British writer C. S. Lewis. When his wife died of cancer in 1960, he wrote an epitaph for her that I think is fitting for Sumar, too:

Here the whole world (stars, water, air,

And field, and forest, as they were

Reflected in a single mind)

Like cast off clothes was left behind

In ashes, yet with hopes that she,

Re-born from holy poverty,

In lenten lands, hereafter may

Resume them on her Easter Day.