<p>How beautiful, epistrophy! Thank you for this and your many other contributions to this thread, your devotion to LTS, and your sensitivity in seeing that what she needed was someone to filter out the horror stories and give her only the inspiring ones.</p>
<p>What an inspiration LTS was. May her memory be for a blessing.</p>
<p>Tears in my eyes.
Latetoschool is an inspiration to us all.
Rest in Peace.
Hugs to her daughter who she loved so much.</p>
<p>I have received many PMs from CC posters asking what to do next. My immediate reaction is not to write to LTS’ daughter right now, as she probably is overwhelmed with the need to cope with the aftermath of her mom’s death. But I will do so later today.</p>
<p>Here are some points that have been raised by posters either in the two threads or in PMs:<br>
1.putting together posts about and by LTS, that is not limited to the posts on the two threads concerning her illness. She and I discovered CC more or less at the same time, in 2004, so a search through the archives would be warranted.
I will ask LTS’ D for her snail mail address so that the collection can be sent to her. I think it will be of comfort to her to read how LTS presented herself to others and how others responded to her. Children don’t always have that perspective.
Some have asked about an obit, and I will enquire about it. I’m also thinking we, collectively, could write an obit and send it on to her D. Many of the posts already contain wording that would be very appropriate.
As well, many have proposed giving in her name. Perhaps a new foundation might be the answer; or perhaps it would be best to send funds to an already existing foundation which LTS supported. I personally would favor the latter, as I would like to avoid duplication of efforts and costs.
Some of you who live in the D.C. area have enquired about a memorial service. I do not know yet whether there will be one, or whether it will be held in the D.C. area or in Miami where LTs resided before her illness and where her daughter still lives. I will enquire and will let you know.</p>
<p>Please let me know what else you would like me to say or ask LTS’s daughter. I plan to email her in the early evening.</p>
<p>NYmom, I had done the same thing, looked to see when she last posted- it was only 4 days. Like others, I have followed the journey and heard the symptoms, treatments, and complications and and really wondering the details of what happened. Not that knowing the changes the end result, but I still want to know, to understand as best I can how things went so quickly awry</p>
<p>Mod JEM posted earlier this AM about compiling all the posts from LTS’s thread and getting it bound for her daughter. I’ve talked to Marite, too. I am working on that project and have been talking to JEM about how to most efficiently (from a technology point of view) download all the pages.</p>
<p>We will make this happen, just the way LTS made things happen throughout her life.</p>
<p>I think the Red Shoe Foundation and a book are a great idea, and I think that LTS’s D needs to be involved since part of this represents her mother’s intellectual property.</p>
<p>Having no original words to express how I feel, I went to my H’s bookshelf and found something fitting, since LTS loved literature. </p>
<p>“Life’s Struggle” excerpted from Rabbi Abraham R. Besdin, in "Euologies (Morton A. Wallack, ed.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Eventually we hope that this year of posts, a final chapter in a life well spent, will be read and cherished by LTS’s daughter someday. </p>
<p>My prayer for her daughter is that she is comforted to add this body of writing to her memory keepske. Her mother made many contributions in the course of a productive lifetime, but her daughter’s central role as a motivator, comforter and perfect healer to her was always expressed here. </p>
<p>**For LTS, Go in Peace.</p>
<p>For the Daughter of LTS - May you find comfort. May you go from strength to strength.**</p>
<p>3rd cry of the morning for me with this news of the loss of our beloved CC friend.
LTS was clearly a stand-out as a woman, as a parent… on so many levels, and our community admiration for her is so very genuine.<br>
I would like to mention epistrophy and also a few other screen names…(we all know who you were!!) who were the bulwharks on this thread. I want to thank you for not only posting incredibly well-researched, luminous and well-considered information about lung cancer but I want to thank those of you who published meditaions, poetry, and stories that we all found inspiring…</p>
<p>I want to recognize those of you who turned up real encouragement so often for LTS…for posting things that made a real difference to her…made clear by her obvious pleasure and her responses to the truly great, wise things you posted here.
thank-you so much.
Marite, we appreciate you feeling out a possible joint response for those of us who would like to make a contribution to the place her daughter will deem the best choice…</p>
<p>marite, One of the first things that should be determined is LTS’ daughter’s feelings about privacy. Some of the suggestions, including the book, posting here of an obituary or even the preferred charity for donations, opens the book on LTS’ daughter’s life, as much private information about her has been posted here by LTS over the years. In her place, I would be extremely reluctant to have such private matters, even those that have to do with LTS’ private thoughts and emotions, made public so that anyone can read them. Forwarding LTS’ posts, our posts on the threads, etc., is one thing, but revealing LTS’ and her daughter’s names is another.</p>
<p>I would like LTS’ daughter to know that she has a team of people, all over the country, with expertise in many areas, at her disposal should she ever want to come here for help or advice, even anonymously.</p>
<p>These lyrics inspired me this morning so for LTS:</p>
<p>Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize - we’re floating in space -
Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die</p>
<p>And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round</p>
<p>Do You Realize - Oh - Oh - Oh
Do You Realize - that everyone you know
Someday will die -</p>
<p>And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round</p>
<p>Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize?</p>
<p>and for LTS’s daughter:</p>
<p>It’s summertime - and I can understand if you
Still feel - sad -
It’s summertime and though it’s hard to see its true
possibilities -</p>
<p>When you look inside - all you’ll see
When you look inside - all you’ll see
Is a self-reflected inner sadness -
Look outside - I know that you’ll
Recognize it’s summertime</p>
<p>Is ADad still on vacation? Does anybody have a way of reaching him to let him know?</p>
<p>I have the same concerns as NYMomof2 about privacy. Many of us feel we can communicate more openly here because it is confidential.</p>
<p>“May the longtime sun shine upon you
All love surround you
And the pure light within you
Guide your way home.”</p>
<p>marite, you could collect contact information for all the moms (via PM) who would be willing to help out LTS’ daughter if she is ever in our respective areas, and forward it on. It wouldn’t invade her privacy, it would just be a resource list for her to use if she needed/wanted to.</p>
<p>mythmom–count me in, too. This (patient advocacy) is an area where I have strong feelings too, having witnessed some terrible (and wonderful) care of my parents in their illnesses, as well as terrible (and wonderful) care of my infant daughters when they were in the NICU. It’s funny that my screen name fits well here, especially since the “patient” was meant as a very generic term…derived from a desire for an impersonal screen name back in the day (2003).</p>
<p>Countingdown, perhaps when you have put the “book” together and are ready to send it, you might request “signatures” from all the posters other than our screen names to add to the book. I don’t mean our real names, but perhaps a few facts about us–sex, age, profession, # and age of childred, state we live in–so that she can see in a more concrete way the larger public that her mother touched.</p>
<p>What an amazing group of people LTS has brought together and how painful this is. I’m grieving for someone I never met and yet who was in my thoughts every day for the last 11 months. My heart goes out to her daughter. </p>
<p>I also want to acknowledge all the sensitive, inspiring, and touching posts by everyone over the last year - in addition to helping LTS, you have also helped countless others. This was the first and last page I checked every day.</p>
<p>“The death of someone we know always reminds us that we are still alive - perhaps for some purpose which we ought to re-examine.” - Mignon McLaughlin</p>
<p>NYmomof2:</p>
<p>Thanks for the reminder. When I mention the idea of the book to LTS’ daughter, I will ask how she feels about it. In fact, I think a book could be written without mentioning her real name and omitting details that would be too specific. But, of course, it will be up to her daughter. We need to give her the space to ponder the many proposals that we are making.</p>
<p>Patient advocacy is something that LTS felt very strongly about, so I will bring it up in my email.</p>
<p>Marite and Others, While all that have been suggested for the Red Heel Foundation are good ideas, perhaps a reachable goal is to set up a scholarship in LTS’s honor, to be adminsitered from this site so that she will have a continuing presence in this community.</p>
<p>Thanks, PAdad. Another idea to pass by LTS’s d this evening.</p>
<p>I too am concerned about the privacy of LTS’s daughter. This may be better left to sometime down the road. As many have said I too was inspired by LTS and her journey this last year. It shocked me to hear of her quick decline and passing after reading her post of just a few days ago. I would like to read her obit as others would just to learn the tiniest bit more about such an amazing women. My concern is only about her daughters state of mind right now and opening her private life to so many. She most certainly is in shock and it’s not the time to make any decision about opening her life in such a public way. This isn’t meant to offend anyone just food for thought. God Bless LTS’s daughter in the next few days and the coming months.</p>