Today brought the very sad news that Tai’lahr – Terri to many of us – had passed away yesterday, October 16th, having suddenly fell ill on Saturday.
Tai’ had been around Uru as long as I could remember, which in my case is only as far back as the later Beta stages before the GameTap release, but that’s still 13 years. I know others in this community have connections that go back even further. Tai’ was a regular on the Guild of Greeters rota back then, so could regularly be found helping ‘newbies’ in the Greeter’s ‘hood. Helping others was something that was just a natural instinct for her and something she continued to do throughout everything I knew her to be involved with.
On the OpenUru.org forums, Tai’lahr was one of the very first people to register an account, and later she would become part of the “core” team, self-styling herself as “OU’s technofeeb lab rat”. This was again her willingness to help, setting herself up as a non-technical sounding board for the rest of us… “will this post come across OK to the average reader in the community?”, “try following these instructions – is there anything that isn’t clear?”
But Tai’ wasn’t as non-technical as she sometimes made out. In post-GameTap years she, like many “Uru exiles”, became active in Second Life. I never explored that avenue, so others will know her work there far better than I do, but I know she did scripting work to support other people’s creations and created and shared many items herself.
For OU, Tai’ has been an evangelist (she’d probably hate that term though), a cheerleader, someone to rally folks when things get a bit slack, scold us if we got things wrong, perk folks up when they’re a bit down. And we’re all a bit down now and missing her terribly.
Perhaps ironically, Tai’lahr was the initiator and long-term keeper of OU’s Explorer’s Memorial and In Memoriam wiki pages – it will now fall to someone else to add Tai’lahr to the In Memoriam page in due course.
I never actually met Tai’ in person, but have come to think of her as good friend, a close friend, a confidante at times. She will be sorely missed.
Requiescat in pace.
