<p>I ask again: How many posters on this site would want their family and friends to be reading their postings here? If you died tonight, would you want your family and friends to have access to what you posted on-line? </p>
<p>I actually am one whose husband and kids know I post here and know my name here, however I don’t think that most posters do this. </p>
<p>Just because someone posts on a public site doesn’t mean that they want their family and friends to read their words.</p>
<p>From what I’ve read, LTS didn’t want her D to read her posts here, so I think that unless someone definitely knows that LTS changed her mind about this, we should respect her wishes. It’s not up to us to reveal things that LTS chose to keep secret. LTS may have had very good reasons to keep what she was writing hidden from her D. LTS was the person in the best position to judge what was best to do.</p>
<p>If the D finds the info on her own, fine. That’s the risk people take when they post, but I don’t think that any of us should lead her to it.</p>
<p>I would have no problem with my family, friends reading my posts.
I suspect that the right thing to be done will be done no matter what that may be in regards to LTS’s daughter. Things have a way of doing that.</p>
<p>My kids know my screenname and can check my posts here any time they like. That said, I know everyone doesn’t feel that way. While it’s a public site, her daughter doesn’t necessarily know her screen name. I agree that it’s not really our business to let out the secret if it is indeed a secret.</p>
<p>I had an IRL email relationship with LTS; I know her name and her daughter’s name, but never was introduced to her daughter.</p>
<p>Obviously LTS’s daughter knows her mom better than any of us do. She clearly knows how much she she was loved; they had an incredibly close relationship by any measure. LTS’ strength, courage, and spirit have to be more patently obvious to her than to any of us. </p>
<p>So what is to be gained by exposing private and anonymous posts which may or may not be something LTS would have approved? I can’t think of anything posted here that would be “secret,” yet neither can I think of anything that would be “news” to LTS’ daughter, beyond that her mom had a large community of online friends who cared for her and found her remarkable, candid, brave, and inspiring. I suspect even this is basically duplicative info too, as her mom clearly had a community of dear IRL friends and colleagues who surely thought the same.</p>
<p>We probably all want to “do” something but I suspect the best honor to LTS would be to do something useful in our own lives/communities to help others who are ill and struggling rather than offer comfort that might end up feeling creepy or odd or not be something LTS would have wanted. </p>
<p>I suggest Marite, as someone LTS “met” online, could simply express to LTSD that LTS’s other online friends are with her. That we praise her mom’s courage, mourn her loss, and send our love and healing wishes.</p>
<p>Chances are good that LTS’s daughter will have access to LTS’s computer, email, etc. Everytime you send a PM, it gets sent to your email. Unless LTS was religious about deleting everything CC related, chances are good her D will find her way here. Remembering LTS’s story about losing her car, I suspect she will have left plenty of clues – for herself to follow!</p>
<p>Recently, I was cleaning out some stuff in the basement. I found a couple journals from college, including one during the time I met and began dating my now husband. I am torn about whether to keep or toss those journals. My D is begging me to keep them, and let her read tham after I die. I don’t know how I feel about those deepest thoughts, feelings, and events being shared, even after I’m gone. I haven’t tossed the notebooks yet, but I keep moving them from pile to pile.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, it still feels surreal that LTS herself is missing now from these discussions.</p>
<p>SBmom,
that is how I feel. I’m saying the information shouldn’t be withheld, if she should find it, so be it. It is not our judgement to keep it from her. That is what my interpretation was from the posts, that people felt that it should not be seen or shared with her at all.</p>
<p>My family knows I post, though I don’t think they know my name. I would not be concerned about them reading my info if I were dead, though I would prefer they not read it whilst I am alive as it would give my teens one more reason to say I am “lame” with an “eyeroll”</p>
<p>The only thing I can think of that could be hurfull is times when I have given advice to others by sharing my experiences about a Ds rough time and have mixed details a bit to protect privacy. I would not want my Ds to read and misinterpret my attempt to help sone one else as being critical of DD</p>
<p>I agree with the general consensus that LTS’ daughter should not be pointed to this site. I see two issues here. One is the question under active discussion - should LTS’ daughter be sent these threads? This would allow her to come to the site and read everything that LTS wrote. In a way, it would be like reading a private journal. Knowing how bravely LTS faced the probability of her looming death from the start - I seem to remember that one of the first things she did was to set up meetings with bankers, lawyers, financial advisers, etc., to arrange the practical matters, I feel sure that if she had wanted her daughter to have access to her online writing here, she would have given her or left her the information. I feel strongly that, as others have said, we should not overrule her. I know that everyone is acting from the best of motives, but LTS trusted us and we must be careful not to, out of the best intentions, betray that trust.</p>
<p>The other issue I see has to do with her identity. In the first anguish over her death (I cannot believe that I am typing that word in relation to LTS), there were requests for posting of obituaries or other information that would open her identity here. We absolutely cannot do this. This would allow anyone at all to come here and, knowing the author, track everything LTS has posted here over the years. </p>
<p>We are all grappling with what is a major loss, in an unprecedented situation. We want to somehow continue the relationship by learning about LTS’ real life, by forming an attachment to her daughter. I don’t think that any of this can happen, except for a few here who had an offline relationship with LTS.</p>
<p>Yes, I believe that if the D finds it, fine. That’s always the risk one takes while posting on a public site. I just don’t think anyone should give the D LTS’s screen name or tell the D where she posted.</p>
<p>I agree with the person who said that the best thing that we can do to honor LTS’ memory is to be kind to the people we know and will know who will be confronted with a fatal illness. It’s always tempting to drop out of another’s life when they are facing death. What LTS taught us by allowing us to be with her during her illness, was the importance of having and giving ongoing support when confronted with our mortality.</p>
<p>I would have no problem with my family reading my posts here on CC, should the unthinkable happen. In the online/off-forum correspondence that I shared with LTS, I never got the impression that she wouldn’t want her daughter to read what she posted on CC. In fact, she offered to set up a get-together with her daughter for me and one of my daughters last year (in addition to a planned meeting for the two of us the previous month). As it turned out, the timing didn’t end up working for us so we postponed it. There was never anything in any of our planning of that get-together that had anything to do with explaining how we knew each other. It never occurred to me that her daughter didn’t know, or that it was a “secret”.</p>
<p>The reality is that none of us, with the possible exception of a couple of members, know for certain whether or not LTS would want her daughter to access CC. As has been said previously, once she found CC, if she hasn’t already (and I’d be surprised if she hasn’t), LTS would be easily identifiable to anyone who knew her. In my opinion, there may come a point in the grieving process where her daughter will be comforted by the support thread, which is why I suggested that a hard copy be made so that it is available. Her daughter is an intelligent, strong young woman, in many ways like her mom. She’ll understand that reading her mom’s deepest thoughts, like reading a diary, is likely to be a mix of both healing and painful experiences. It should be up to her daughter as to whether she wants to read the thread or not. She may very well choose not to, but the choice is hers to make, not ours.</p>
<p>You know, the posts could be printed and given without screennames attached and links to CC. That would allow her to read this thread only and she would have to make a more significant effort to find and read the rest of CC.</p>
<p>I searched LTS’ name for posts and the record did not go back very far, just June of this year??</p>
<p>“Think about it: How many posters here would want your kids to see your posts here? If you were to die today, would you want someone to provide your family access to your posts on on-line sites?”</p>
<p>Yes. I would not want private e-mail divulged, but I know when I post on this site that my kids can find it if they want to as it’s a public site and I have thought of that more than once when I posted. If I thought my children would know me better and know how much I loved them, then, yes, I would want them to read my words. I lost both my parents by the time I was a freshman in college. Anything and everything that has ever allowed me to try to know them – photos, stories, odd facts – has been most welcome and most valuable to me – even the things that were unpleasant surprises.</p>
<p>“You know, the posts could be printed and given without screennames attached and links to CC.”</p>
<ol>
<li>LTS said that she did not want her posts shared with her D.</li>
<li><p>Even if they were printed out without her name, it would not be hard to trace them back to CC.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s important to realize that even if you would have wanted to see the posts if you were LTS’ D, and you would have been glad to share them if you were LTS, you are not LTS or her D. Their responses, experiences, and desires may be very different from yours. What might have been fine or welcome for you might be something that is devastating to someone else. This is why it would be best to follow LTS’ wishes. If her D happens to find the site, fine, but no reason to lead the D to it. I think that it is respectful to believe that LTS knew what was best for her family, and to respect her wishes.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Perhaps we could provide LTS’s D with the “Support for LTS” and “RIP” thread, but not ALL of the threads LTS posted on - especially not the ones way back when she was discussing her D and college issues.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’d want my D seeing some of what I’ve posted about parenting her. At least, not for several years!</p>
<p>If LTS had wanted her D to see anything about what she wrote here, she would have done that.</p>
<p>If people want to send the D something, they send a PM to whomever here knows the D IRL, and the PM could include info about how much LTS had meant to them. Those PMs could be compiled with senders’ names removed, and then the PMs could be given to the D. </p>
<p>This would allow people to send sympathy without breaking the privacy here that apparently LTS wanted to keep.</p>