<p>Just flipped to the top threads after having done my daily read of this one tonight- Rest in peace LTS. It will help her daughter to know so many people cared. Moderator- please find a way this thread can be preserved, LTS’s D deserves the past months postings by her fantastic mother, it may take her a while to be able to read them.</p>
<p>I reported my post as a problem post to get the moderator’s attention.</p>
<p>It’s 1:40 a.m. and I find myself with tears streaming down my cheeks for a person I’ve “met” and respected only in cyberspace… I never have experienced this kind of grief for someone whose name I don’t even know. If anyone could have beat this cowardly, evil disease, I thought it would have been her. Wis75, I agree… LTS’s D needs to know what a profound effect her mother has been on group of perfect strangers on the internet.</p>
<p>I couldn’t sleep and felt compelled to check on LTS tonight. I feel as if I have lost a very dear friend. What really impressed me about LTS was that no matter how horrible she felt or what she was going through she was always thinking of others.
I really can’t express the depth of sadness I feel right now.
A beautiful light has been extinguished.</p>
<p>On the last scans LTS had, the brain MRI was clear. She was so adamant that this damned disease not take away her mind, so I am thankful she knew that she had beaten that part of the beast.</p>
<p>Forgive me for “crashing” this thread so late. I checked it once or twice a day, and though I never posted, I was rooting for LTS the whole way.</p>
<p>I have lost a great-grandmother to cervical cancer and my grandmother and great-aunt are both breast cancer survivors.</p>
<p>It is sad that LTS is gone, but at the same time, it seems that she didn’t suffer too much, which is always a small comfort. I pray that her days with God are blessed and that there will be a joyful reunion between her and her family someday. God bless.</p>
<p>Yes, CountingDown. Losing her faculties scared her more than death, I think. And your right – she was spared that.</p>
<p>Epistrophy, I just want to say thank you publicly for the support your posts gave to LTS. You gave her (and many others here) hope, and that is a priceless gift.</p>
<p>I just came to check if there was any news. I must have spent 15 minutes searching the thread, wondering why posts of prayers and hope had turned to the news that LTS is gone. I truly could not believe it and was frantic to find a hopeful post. After reading the new thread, Rest in Peace LTS, I sit here crying, sending hugs to her dear daughter. LTS will be missed by so many. Rest in peace, LTS. It is a blessing to have known you.</p>
<p>me, too, Oakmom. I could not figure out why the sad faces, I was hoping some one ad mis-interpreted the need for prayer, as I had left this thread open and did not see hte new one.</p>
<p>I am crying, still, and oh, so sad. I miss her already and was just PMing with her a week or two ago. How could this happen so quickly? I hope, Marite, you can convince LTS DD to read this thread when she is ready and has the time. It will just be such a reminder of her mum’s indomitable spirit and feisty fun attitude.</p>
<p>So sad 
I never met her, but my world is smaller without her in it</p>
<p>I, too am stunned and saddened by our loss. But what an incredible gift this woman’s life and, indeed, her struggle with this disease has been as she shared, through her generous spirit, her furious desire to increase opportunities for others. Always, always that was her priority: to take the other person’s perspective and insure that person’s load was lighter and their journey was better. Of course we grieve with LTS’s daughter because we will all miss our LTS terribly. I don’t think I will personally encounter another spirit like hers in my lifetime.</p>
<p>I hope that our prayers served to provide our dear LTS (and her daughter) with the assurance that this struggle and her “witness” to us all has made an impact that will be felt far and wide and for a long, long time. The world is a much better place for having known LTS and now I am glad she does not have to struggle with this terrible disease any more…</p>
<p>And I would like to add my pleas to the moderators to find a way to preserve this thread…</p>
<p>And comfort and love to her daughter. Anyone who witnessed the love from Epistrophy, Adad, marite and all the participants and lurkers on this thread as well as the inspiring spirit of LTS as she fought to stay among us has a deep experience of the goodness in the universe that helps us work through loss of the physical presence of those we love.</p>
<p>Here is a vignette that helped us in the past and that I am remembering now as I think of LTS:</p>
<p>Gone from My Sight</p>
<p>I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side
spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and
starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty
and strength. I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where
the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.</p>
<p>Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”</p>
<p>“Gone where?”</p>
<p>Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in
mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and
she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her
destined port.</p>
<p>Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the
moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”</p>
<p>And that is dying.</p>
<p>(Henry Van Dyke)</p>
<p>In sharing her journey, LTS has multiplied herself through the growth she has inspired in us. Red shoes and credits to LTS in citations in creative activity she will undoubtedly inspire in this community will continue the cyber-bond she has created in this short year.</p>
<p>I always found the image of the welcome in the “other eyes” and “other voices” very comforting…</p>
<p>Beautiful, operamom. Thanks for the reminder of that lovely image.</p>
<p>Oh, I am so, so sad to hear about the loss of LTS. She was such a heroic fighter. But, I am glad she passed peacefully. And she died with her intellect, spirit and humor intact! I am going to miss you so much, LTS.</p>
<p>Even in her last months, LTS, made big contributions to society while fighting for her own life. Boy did she fight her hardest. I do not know where LTS found her energy. She became a strong patient advocate.</p>
<p>Her personality really came through in her writing. She had such a sense of humor and she had me laughing so hard that I had tears rolling down my face, and I am glad that I told her how hard she made me laugh. Now I have tears of sadness. The CC community lost someone very special.</p>
<p>To LTS’s daughter, hugs to you. I am so sorry.</p>
<p>We truly all do feel as though we lost a friend, and in a very real way we did. LTS was a friend in maybe the purest sense. We didn’t know her name, her background (more than she wanted us to know), her looks, or anything extraneous. We knew her heart, her soul, and her spirit. And we grew to love and respect her in a true, unfettered way. What a gift she gave us, and, I hope, we returned it to her by our support. There were possibly thousands of us affected by her story. But also, we were affected by each other. I am very grateful for having read this story for these eleven months and for having the blessing of knowing that even through the impersonality of the internet and an anonymous online forum, true love of humanity and the goodness of people can shine through and hit the places in the heart that really matter. Thank you to everyone for being here for us, and I am sure that we all touched LTS very deeply. This has been truly magnificent.</p>
<p>
I am also thankful for this.</p>
<p>A valiant, valiant 11 month fight. Thoughts and prayers to her dau and to all the extended cc “family”.</p>
<p>I too am hoping that this thread and the “LTS rest in peace” thread will, at some point, provide some consolation to LTS’ D. It is a tremendous testament to a very special person who very positively affected our online community.</p>
<p>Re the thread being “preserved” – it will always be accessible but of course may at some point drop to a later page. A search for “LatetoSchool” in the title should access it at any point.</p>
<p>Thank you, every one of you, from those who posted regularly in support of LTS to the lurkers who finally emerged inspired by her, for your caring contributions to this thread. It is a testament both to LTS and to our community.</p>
<p>P.S. For any who want to smile through the tears, here is a link to marite’s nomination of LTS for a CC writing award: LTS’ story of her lost car.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/56155-announcing-collegeconfidential-writing-awards-2004-2005-a-2.html?highlight=monsanto#post736928[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/56155-announcing-collegeconfidential-writing-awards-2004-2005-a-2.html?highlight=monsanto#post736928</a></p>
<p>I am shocked and saddened. My prayers are with the family. What a tough fight to the end!</p>