<p>I think Padad’s idea is excellent. Perhaps in order to qualify, a student might need to be a first generation rising college student and/or be required to write an essay about a situation s/he was in where s/he advocated for someone’s rights.</p>
<p>cross posted with marite</p>
<p>It is true that this forum is for screennames and that an aspect of what LTS enjoyed here included a form of privacy and privileged sharing with her CC community and friends. I am sure Marite will keep all of this in mind, as well as allowing LTS’s daughter to determine her own timing re a response to our questions…with good grace. Perhaps her daughter needs some gracetime to think about privacy parameters, and how to receive condolences from people who knew her only in this unique way…Marite…I am sure you will represent our best intentions to her very well.</p>
<p>I know from all of these posts that I am not the only one to be surprised at the tears gently streaming down my face. But they are happy-sad tears, because the beauty of LTS’s spirit was such a gift to all of us.</p>
<p>And she brought forth the beauty in this community. It is impossible to thank all of you who have so inspired us, along with your muse LTS. But, as at least one other member has done, I especially thank epistrophy and ADad for their gifts to all of us on this thread.</p>
<p>HarrietM, the song you posted is one I sing to myself in memory of my own father. Now I will be remembering LTS as well.</p>
<p>Thank you, marite, for being our link to her family.</p>
<p>Perhaps don’t even request any information be made public until the daughter has had sufficient time to consider and go through anything her mom has posted online with a clear head. If I died tomorrow I might not want everything I ever posted anonymously to be revealed to my kids and my kids friends!!!</p>
<p>I think the idea of CC administrators setting up a scholarship is great though, and that certainly can be done with just a screen name!</p>
<p>I am also in shock at the news. I found out last night and woke up throughout the night feeling terribly distressed as I remembered what had happened. I am grateful for a few things though. I’m grateful that she had hope even a few days before she left us and that she was spared a more drawn-out process of suffering. Also, I’m very grateful that she never had to give up her work. She did what she said she would do – she worked up until the end. And I’m grateful that her daughter was with her. And I am so very grateful to Sax (I believe it was Sax) who put out the call for prayer. Thank you for allowing us to join together, throughout the country, so that we could all, in such a tangible way, give our final support to latetoschool.</p>
<p>I like the scholarship idea very much. </p>
<p>I agree that despite our urgent need to do something, LTS’ daughter has many higher priorities, and will need time before she can respond.</p>
<p>I am listening to Eva Cassidy’s versions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Wonderful World. They are on youtube, live at BluesAlley. Like LTS, she died of cancer way too young.</p>
<p>I, too, want to add my feeling of loss and grief over the passing of LTS. I will forever remember her courage and strength. There is an old South African adage that says: Do all that you can, with what you have, in the time that you have. LTS exemplified this adage. </p>
<p>I like padad’s idea of setting up, if possible, a CC scholarship in honor of LTS. Count me in as a contributor.</p>
<p>I would love to contribute to such a fund, too.</p>
<p>I keep thinking of that photo that LTS mentioned, the one she kept on her desk, from shortly before she was diagnosed. The one showing her with the generals, on top of the world. I’d give anything to see it. But I think we will have to be satisfied with out mental images of her in her red heels, long blonde hair flowing, leaping over hurdles.</p>
<p>So sorry to hear about this. It seems especially shocking since the most recent information “from the front” regarding the scans was good news. We all know that no one could have fought harder or with a more positive energy than LTS. She died with her boots (or red shoes if you prefer) on.</p>
<p>I’d like to recommend the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” to LTS’s daughter; I found it enormously comforting after my sister died of cancer 17 years ago.</p>
<p>I felt a punch in the gut when I first heard the news of LTS’s diagnosis and I’m feeling another one now.</p>
<p>LTS was indeed a very special person. Prior to her diagnosis I was struck by a number of her posts and motivated to PM her with my admiration of her successes in life and her overall outlook on life that allowed her to achieve those successes. </p>
<p>After her diagnosis LTS was gracious enough to share her private ordeal with us and brought us together. By sharing her tribulations and other posters sharing information, the LTS thread may in fact, have ended up helping several other people going through similar ordeals.</p>
<p>We can all learn from LTS.</p>
<p>Tango, I like the idea of a “signature page.” I also think the scholarship padad suggested is a terrific tribute. (The Red Heels Scholarship Fund?) Sax, thank you for organizing the collective prayer last night. I am thankful to have offered prayers for peace and healing at a time when it was truly needed.</p>
<p>Marite, I agree that we shouldn’t pour all of our collective grief on LTS’s D right now. Right now she needs to take care of herself and her mom’s wishes. As I mentioned earlier, I am also concerned about privacy.</p>
<p>It will take some time to get everything printed and bound in any event, and to let everyone who wants to post here and the original LTS thread so we can include eeryone’s thoughts. Needless to say, however, I think the book should be red leather. :)</p>
<p>Nymomof2,
Eva Cassidy’s music is magic. A WaPo columnist sang her praises years ago and I went out to get her CDs. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” makes me cry every time. Without fail. And, if you haven’t heard it, she does a cover of Sting’s “Fields of Gold” that is far, far better than the original. Her CD “Songbird” has both songs, as well as a number of spirituals and other amazing pieces. It was released posthumously and the foreshadowing of the songs with her too-early passing are haunting.</p>
<p>I think I may have learned of Eva Cassidy on CC. I agree that her music is magical.</p>
<p>Such a loss. Thank you to LTS for her wisdom, and for taking the time to share her journey with us when it must have been very painful. Thank you also to all the posters here and on the original Support for LTS thread, you have shared such pearls of wisdom and beauty. My mother is battling cancer and I have pulled quotes, poems, etc from the Support thread to send to her. </p>
<p>I like the scholarship idea, but I too am thinking we need to find a way to do this that will preserve LTS’s daughter’s privacy, as I am sure her mom wrote things here thinking that no one would ever know who she was.</p>
<p>I just came back from a two week vacation.
Coming home, I wanted to first check on LTS.
I am stunned, shocked, deeply saddened by this news, I can hardly believe it. Such a remarkable, compassionate, beautiful woman, battling a valiant fight with extraordinary spirit. </p>
<p>One of my last images the evening before I left some 30 or so hours ago: a lone white swan gliding effortlessly and pure white, on the dark calm waters of an Amsterdam canal. I stood on the bridge watching for a good half hour, watching this regal beautiful swan. The remaining dusk light was beautiful, filtering through the leaves of the linden trees and making mottled reflections on the water. I thought of LTS as I watched, and sent a silent prayer. This is the image that will remain with me, thinking of LTS as a swan, white, calm, peaceful, special, extraordinary, inspirational.</p>
<p>To LTS’s dear daughter: May prayers, deep love and support from friends, wonderful memories, and the knowledge that your mother was a gift and inspiration to so many people, sustain you. My heart goes out to you.</p>
<p>I have not yet read through all the posts on this and the other thread, but please count me in, regarding participating in a scholarship fund or any other effort by this incredible community.</p>
<p>Godspeed LTS.</p>
<p>What a shock! I had a very uneasy feeling when LTS has not posted and update us on her condition for a while. It is just not her.</p>
<p>I am so so sad. Good bye dear friend, whom I never met. Thank you for your inspiration and wisdom.</p>
<p>My thoughts and prayers are with her dear daughter, family and friends. May they be comforted in knowing that LTS have touched a lot lives and provided inspiration to many.</p>
<p>Please count me in for whatever the group decide in her memory, be it a foundation, scholarship, whatever.</p>
<p>“She has gone peacefully to God”</p>
<p>In the past two weeks, I became increasingly concerned of her spiritual needs as I sensed that her conditions had deteriorated to a point of no return. It was my fervent hope that her strong spirit will come to terms with it at the end, and I find solace in her daughter’s message. Among the poems that I wanted to include in the LTS support thread was one by Louis McNeice, written after Germany invaded Poland, on his premonition of impending war. But I refrained from posting it due to some of the wordings. The last stanza expresses well my feeling toward her. The poem may be well known to many already.</p>
<p>The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.</p>
<p>Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.</p>
<p>The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying</p>
<p>And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.</p>
<p>What a lovely poem, padad. I had never posted on the support thread until last night. My thoughts are with her family and with all of you who had grown close to her through CC.</p>
<p>I agree that padad’s post is beautiful. Thank you.</p>
<p>Somehow coming to this post late and in tears. She’ll be missed. Just spent the past weekend catering for a friend’s dad who has terminal cancer and just about one month left. His final birthday party. Hard times.</p>