MaggieMae
Reality bits
- Apr 3, 2009
- 24,043
- 1,635
- 48
Not me, not yet.
A close friend was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which is 99.99% fatal within a year. She never had children, and the only remaining family are distant cousins. But she has several close friends, both live ones and has made friends sight unseen on the Internet via a variety of topic message boards and groups who play games like Scrabble and even Chess online.
Her problem is how to notify those people that she is dying, and what kind of instructions to give her executor (in this case me) for notifying her friends on the Internet when she does die. This woman doesn't want to just turn up missing for several days and have everyone wonder what's happened, for one thing. Her other concern is that she doesn't want to just give out her screen name and passwords to me (or anyone else) to go poking around her private exchanges.
I suggested she select what she considers the most trusted Internet friend in each of the sites she visits and explain the situation and ask for that person's email address, which I will keep and then notify those people who could spread the sad news. BUT, Marjorie is a very private person and has never given her email address to even those she trusts, but has never met in person. Actually her biggest fear in doing that is that the person will go ahead and tell others anyway, which she doesn't want. No sympathy beforehand, in other words. Plus there's always the possibility of exploitation if her impending death was released online for anyone to see.
It's sad that while we feel free to expose parts of our most vulnerable personas, when it comes down to reality, we really are private people. Maybe she is being too paranoid, so I thought I'd solicit some input as a third party of interest on her behalf.
A close friend was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which is 99.99% fatal within a year. She never had children, and the only remaining family are distant cousins. But she has several close friends, both live ones and has made friends sight unseen on the Internet via a variety of topic message boards and groups who play games like Scrabble and even Chess online.
Her problem is how to notify those people that she is dying, and what kind of instructions to give her executor (in this case me) for notifying her friends on the Internet when she does die. This woman doesn't want to just turn up missing for several days and have everyone wonder what's happened, for one thing. Her other concern is that she doesn't want to just give out her screen name and passwords to me (or anyone else) to go poking around her private exchanges.
I suggested she select what she considers the most trusted Internet friend in each of the sites she visits and explain the situation and ask for that person's email address, which I will keep and then notify those people who could spread the sad news. BUT, Marjorie is a very private person and has never given her email address to even those she trusts, but has never met in person. Actually her biggest fear in doing that is that the person will go ahead and tell others anyway, which she doesn't want. No sympathy beforehand, in other words. Plus there's always the possibility of exploitation if her impending death was released online for anyone to see.
It's sad that while we feel free to expose parts of our most vulnerable personas, when it comes down to reality, we really are private people. Maybe she is being too paranoid, so I thought I'd solicit some input as a third party of interest on her behalf.
