College student Archie (pseudonym) has an "island" called "Never Island".
When spring came, she built a cemetery on the island.
The cemetery was built for my mother, who died in early March. The cemetery is lined with zodiac ornaments on both sides of the cobblestone road, and yellow and white chrysanthemums are placed on the outside. The cobblestone road leads to a tombstone.
Archie's cemetery built in the game
Archie's "island" is in the virtual world of the game system, which is her way of remembering and remembering her mother.
Archie posted online about building a cemetery in the game. Netizens with similar experiences found her, told her about the experience of losing their loved ones and finding comfort in the game. For Archie, the game's memorial space provides her with a place to place emotions. "I can also have a place where I miss my mother, I can go anytime, anywhere, and I can think of her without interference from others."
On the evening of March 16, Archie told www.thepaper.cn about the idea, her memories of her mother, and her thoughts about the deceased in the virtual world.
Here's what Archie has to say:
A utopia
A cartoon drawn by Archie's friends based on a selfie by Archie, his mother, and sister
On March 2, my mother died of a sudden heart attack, she was 46 years old, very young. After my mother died, one day I felt very tired and tired, so I opened the game and wanted to relax.
It's a home-building game. In this game, everyone has their own uninhabited island, on that uninhabited island players can raise flowers, grow vegetables, fish, can arrange the landscape of the uninhabited island, whatever it looks like, even the shape of the river and the shape of the mountain are determined by the player himself.
The name of my island is Yongwu Island, which is the name of his island in Peter Pan's story, and my own name in the game is Peter Pan. There is no such thing as a real island, all children will meet Peter Pan when they are young, but when they grow up they will not see him again, and I hope that my idealistic and innocent things will remain in the virtual world forever.
My original intention was to make the island an island like a fairy tale. I used a lot of elements, such as red mushrooms and exaggerated dolls, to arrange it. The island is full of red and white roses, there are a lot of mushrooms, a lot of plants, but then it slowly changed. For example, I set up a piece of land to look like a wedding and take a group photo of a couple of friends' characters in the game. Later, on that piece of land, I often took pictures of my classmates in the way they wanted. Now, there is more mother's cemetery on the island.
I start playing this game from the end of May 2020. At first I played every day, then it became once a few weeks, and then it became a months. I've always thought of it as a utopia and always went to the island to have a look.
I haven't played for a long time because I was preparing for graduate school. After this opening, I received three letters, one from winter, one from autumn, and one from spring. The spring letter reads: The snow melts, bringing life to the grass and trees, and my mother is also happy.
It's a healing process
When I received the letter, I suddenly remembered that there was a tombstone prop, and there happened to be a vacant lot on my island, so I had the idea of building a cemetery for my mother. The little animals in the game will randomly send tombstones to the player, but I used to throw away those because I didn't understand what it was for, and I felt very hady when they gave them to me. This time, I asked for a tombstone from a netizen, and the tombstone had no design, just like my mother's real-world tombstone.
The construction of the cemetery took about two hours. First build a high ground in the open space, I hope there is a bridge, I build another bridge, I also want to have orange grass flowers. In the poem, it is said, "The north hall is dark and can be planted." "The grass was the mother flower of ancient times. In front of the tombstone, I also placed some zodiac ornaments, representing me, my father, my sister, my grandmother, my grandfather, and my grandmother.
Most of these props are exchanged with netizens, and the wreaths are also collected by netizens. Mom's pillows, mom dolls, and mom cakes were all saved up one by one after I received them before.
During the construction process, I have been very calm and did not feel very sad. Putting things up one by one is actually a very healing process.
There was something that reminded me of the old days and felt very warm. For example, there is a black cake in the game, much like the "dark dish" chocolate mushroom soup that my mother made for me when I was a child, and I have a sense of intimacy, so I put the black cake on the table.
The continuation of memories and thoughts
My family is in Loudi, Hunan, I am now a junior in college, studying in Xi'an, I received a phone call from my father and learned the news of my mother's death. People said that my brain would go blank when I heard unexpected news, but I wasn't like that, and I suddenly understood what my dad was saying, and then I cried very loudly, and I cried hard that night. I don't know why, it may be that different people handle it differently.
My mom was supposed to be too tired because she died. She worked at the chess academy, a career she loved, and on the morning of her death she kept on the phone to organize the tournament. Because of the chess academy she is in, the popularity rate of Go in our small county town is very high, which I think is a very remarkable thing.
I got along with my mom and I had absolutely no gaps, and she gave me the meticulous companionship of my childhood. She would take me to the hillside to fly kites and teach me to write my homework and play Go. In the 200s, piano was not widespread in our small county, but my mother let me learn it because I liked piano. I've had her best love for 20 years. When I grew up, she never asked me to choose a major or how much money I made, and her views were also very avant-garde, saying that you can just support yourself without getting married. She gave me the courage to chase after what I wanted to do.
Up to now, it has been half a month since my mother died, and I have always had negative emotions, I used to cry a lot, but now it is much better and the frequency has become lower. I didn't suppress and dissolve these emotions, but let them flow, and I felt that there was no way to escape these things, and it would be more uncomfortable to escape.
In the game, I also designed a room for my mother, which was restored according to her original room, and there was a piano in it, which corresponded to the piano she bought for me when I was 10 years old. Two weeks ago, I went to see a psychiatrist once. The psychiatrist said that he could put something new in the room and use it as a connection to his mother. Although the things she wanted to share could not be given directly to her, at least there was still a place to put them.
Archie decorates Mom's room
I always wanted to do something, but I couldn't do anything anymore. But I can also have a place where I miss her, I can go anytime, anywhere, and I can think of her in it without interference. When I saw my character standing inside, I could start thinking about her without having to stand in front of her real tombstone.
I think it's a continuation of memories and thoughts, and it's good for me. Now, I really want her to open the game, sit in the cemetery for ten minutes, and then turn it off. I had planned to show it to my sister, but my sister was so busy at boarding school that she hadn't seen it yet.
I also have a record of my mother in Douban, which is similar to building a virtual space to commemorate my mother. I see some scenes in my life, and from time to time I think of some fragments.
One day I was looking at my mother's obituary, very formulaic, but I can think of many details behind it, such as my mother's "became a certified public accountant in 2003", and I remember her saying how she coaxed me to sleep at seven o'clock in the evening, got up at four in the morning to brush up on the problem, and cooked again at seven. I think it's a pity not to write down some moments, I'm afraid that this will be remembered, and after a while I won't be able to remember, so I must quickly write it down.
The virtual world is like a reflection of the most ideal real life in my mind, but I will definitely separate it from real life. There are many unsatisfactory things in real life, and there are also many pressures, such as if I want to go to graduate school, there is academic pressure. I think of the game as a haven of rest, but the pressures in life are also something I have to face so that I can continue to live.