Rina

Rina. Many know her as the person obsessed with VTubers, namely Korone. Others know her from the Discord.js Support Server (hereby known as "DJS"), and others know her from Lunes, where she frequently was seen cranking switches and knobs behind the scenes. Regardless of whether you knew her for a day, a month, or a year, you could see nothing but an energetic, bright, and happy person who lit up the room whenever she came online. Around January of 2022, we learned that Rina had passed away in an accident. But this isn't the end of her story. This is only the beginning. This is the story of Rina.

I first met Rina back in January 2020. She was yet another person in the DJS help channels. Just another face who needed help and received it. Only, instead of that being the end of the story, she decided to stick around. Out of the tens of thousands of people that seek help on that server and leave immediately after, she was unique. She stayed because the people within had intrigued her. Who would have known that a simple coding question would have led to over a year and a half of friendship and comradery, that she would have met over a dozen people and started a new chapter of her life?

First sighting of Rina in #general

My interactions with Rina first started off in the #general channel. We vibed and got along, and it led to us and others talking with each other frequently. We'd all talk about literally anything under the sun. We talked about traveling, life, family, gaming, coding, and much much more. At some point, it had occurred to me that I never even sent her a friend request.

Our first DM together

After some time passed, I had even felt comfortable enough to invite her to my personal server where it was just me and a couple close friends. Due to some circumstances in DJS, namely the #no-mic channel having a new long slow mode applied to it, we moved all conversations to my server where there was no limit on what everyone discussed. She had also invited me to a server that she managed, called Lunes. Thanks to Rina, I was able to meet so many more people in that server and even re-met one of my childhood best friends through her. An insane story, but maybe for another time, and it's all thanks to her.

Some of my most fond memories were of her recommending this one anime to me, "5 centimeters per second", and joining the VC to hear me absolutely sobbing because of the ending (if you haven't watched it, highly recommend). Others include her embarrassing me in front of other people (which ended up also resulting in me meeting those would later go on to become some of my best friends), or one of her wild stories detailing all the things she had gone through in life.

Rina poking fun at me for crying at anime

Rina embarassing me in front of others

The first sign of trouble came in March of 2021 when Rina's Father In Law passed away. It is customary in Chinese culture that if a family memory passes, those that are currently engaged are obligated to get married in less than 100 days or wait 3 years. This means that her previous plan of waiting until 2022 to get married was going to happen a lot sooner than planned and that the time we had with her was going to decrease heavily. Due to the heavy circumstances, she obviously was not around as much. Her absence was hard on us, but thankfully she was able to find time to talk to us occasionally. It was always sad to realize that one day, Rina was going to start a family and become too busy for us. I even texted her telling her how much I was going to miss her. I am usually not an emotional person, but this was one of the few times that I truly cried over the thought of someone going away.

The above screenshots hit really hard when I look back at them. For me to realize that what she was saying, and she didn't even know it at the time, would be how I would cope with her death. I think back to these screenshots and feel happy that I was at least able to tell her one time, that I appreciated her. If I had known I would never get the chance to say it to her again, I would have done it many more times.

After the wedding, at which she sent some beautiful photos to us, her activity decreased even further. She visited us occasionally, but because of the high amount of stress she had, things simply weren't the same.

She went offline for a couple months after that, but when she came back, it was to deliver amazing news to us. After around 8 months of being married, she told us that she was pregnant. We were all ecstatic, as being a mother was one of her biggest dreams. As anxious and uneasy as she was, we could see the excitement that she had for being able to bring a new life to this world and guide it through all the twists and turns that would come with it.

Now for the part of the story that I'm not proud of. Rina and I had gotten in a conflict where she and I disagreed on something and we didn't speak to each other for a bit. Sooner or later, we were going to make up with each other. Unfortunately, that time never came. On January 31st, 2020, a mutual friend informed us that Rina's sister, who she was close with, had told her that Rina had suffered a serious accident and didn't make it. At that point, it felt like time had just stopped. That my whole world came crashing down. How could this happen? We were all friends, we all talked about sticking together forever, and we were all going to grow old with each other? How could Rina be dead now? What hurt even worse, was knowing that her child passed away in this accident too as a result. We had dozens of conversations about how we were going to be the best aunts and uncles to her child, that we were going to give it the best life ever and that we'd give it everything that we couldn't have. But now, that time will never come.

Death is never an easy thing to deal with. It eats away at the person and lingers in the mind for a long time. You start thinking about "what ifs" "maybe if I had done this" and all that. Some took Rina's death very hard, not being able to cope with it until weeks passed. In the end, we all had to realize the hard truth. Rina was dead, and she wasn't coming back. We were never going to see her icon flash online ever again, we were never going to meet her child, we were never going to all come together and throw the party of our lives. And what hurts the most is that I was never even able to say sorry to her. I was never able to apologize for our fight. It's one of my biggest regrets and I wish I could just go back in time, slap myself, and tell myself to apologize to her and makeup right then and there. Instead, I'll have to live with what happened for the rest of my life.

What I hope you take away from reading this page is that life is short. You never know when it might end, and it could end in the blink of an eye. Take the time every day to inform those you love that you appreciate them. You never know when it's too late. Death comes for us all, some sooner than others. And while the grief is painful, we can internalize it within ourselves that it's because we loved her so much and that she loved us.

Rina, thank you for all the memories you gave us. Thank you for being accepting, for staying with us as long as you did, and for treating us just like family. If I could say one last thing to you, it would be that I am so proud of the person you became. As a friend, a soon-to-be-mother, and as a person. If only things had gone differently and you were still with us.

I will leave you with a song that embodies Rina. She sent me this song after making fun of me for crying at 5 centimeters per second, and I listen to it from time to time as a way to honor her memory. Rest in peace Rina, we will never forget you.