Missing node_events.{h,cc} in Node js causing build issues with old-ish package

I'm experimenting with r-node, a package that relies on Node js. The package itself is a bit outdated, relying on node_events, an old file from the mid 2010s. At the build stage, it complains of the following: 

src/binding.cc:24:10: fatal error: 'node_events.h' file not found
#include <node_events.h>
         ^
1 error generated.
make[1]: *** [src/binding.o] Error 1
make: *** [server] Error 2

node_events was removed from Node js circa 2 years ago: https://github.com/joyent/node/commit/4ef8f06fe62edb74fded0e817266cb6398e69f36#src/node_events.h

I'm wondering what the background is--why did the node js folks remove this particular file, and how would package writers update their end to keep up with this. Thanks.

As much as I understand node.js source code when it existed node_events.{h,cc} the platform used an emitter writed in C :

var EventEmitter = exports.EventEmitter = process.EventEmitter

But they realised that it would be much better to create an event emitter directly from javascript code:

var EventEmitter = NativeModule.require('events').EventEmitter;

lib/events.js:

function EventEmitter() {
      this.domain = null;
      if (exports.usingDomains) {
        // if there is an active domain, then attach to it.
        domain = domain || require('domain');
        if (domain.active && !(this instanceof domain.Domain)) {
          this.domain = domain.active;
        }
      }
      this._events = this._events || null;
      this._maxListeners = this._maxListeners || defaultMaxListeners;
    }
    exports.EventEmitter = EventEmitter;

So if you are using a package that uses the old event emitter just delete the inclusion #include <node_events.h>(with all deps) from the sources that you want to update and recompile again.