may her memory be eternal.
we will do all we can here to ensure it.
For weeks, the anonymous umkay’s thread has been all I have looked for here every day, and often worried about during the pauses. For an ethereal being on a web forum, she was more loved than anyone might imagine. Now I am sitting here, holding a tablet, scaring the cat, and crying.
NotOk, please, one more well wish from a stranger so sorry she has gone, the best new soul to have come along in quite a while.
I am so sad to hear this I didn’t post in her thread but I read it – she was so amazing!
Notokay I’m so sorry for your loss hugs
I agree.
She was so charming. I wished I could have read about her scuba-diving!
I am so sorry for your loss. Your wonderful sister was one of the most amazing people I have ever met on the internet. I can’t believe she is gone. It is very generous that you would extend the invitation to the wake to us here. I would count it a privilege to attend. I am in Southern California. Thank you in advance for providing the details by private message or by posting them here. I am so sorry.
I’m sorry for your loss. She’ll be missed here, too.
I need to talk about umkay. Is this the place to do it? Should I start a new thread?
I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe she is gone. She was larger than life. She was so amazing, so mature, so wise beyond her years, so interesting, so generous. The last thing I know of that she posted was this: “I’m open to hearing your side and possibly having my mind changed as a result.” In the incredibly short time that she was here, she made such an impression. I found myself thinking several times that if we could all be more like umkay, even just in the way she responded to others’ posts, the Dope would be a better place. The world would undoubtedly be a better place if more people were like her. I don’t mean to deify her or something, but she really did have a wisdom, brilliance, and captivating way of writing (speaking, really) that made me and many others, I think, log on all the time hoping she had posted something else. How can she be GONE??? How can she be gone. I’m in denial. How can she be gone.
Knowing that my feelings are only based upon knowing her for such a short time just here, I feel like it might even be inappropriate for me to be expressing them like this, because her family of course is in the depths of grief (or likely shock) and I don’t want to give the impression that I think my shock or sadness is even in the same universe as theirs – I know that it is not. I know it’s not. But oh, I just can’t believe it. Oh, umkay. umkay, umkay, umkay.
That’s terrible news. I am so sorry, NotOkay and for all her family. My condolences.
Wow. I am so sorry for your loss.
I have had this thread open for several days, gradually making my way through all the pages and feeling so… enlightened by umkay’s insights on her life.
My condolences to her loved ones. She seemed to be doing so well, it’s shocking that she’s gone so suddenly. She definitely added a lot to the board in her short time here. I think she changed many people’s perceptions about people living with spinal cord injuries. Her happy, fun attitude brightened things up.
It sounded like she loved her family very much. I’m glad that she was surrounded by a loving family - that surely had a lot to do with why she seemed like such a happy and positive person even though she faced so many challenges in life. I definitely wish peace and comfort to those of you who knew and loved her.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
This is horrible news.
I’m terribly sorry to hear it.
My condolences to umkay’s family.
I’m so sorry.
I’m very sorry for your loss, and ours. I can only echo what others have said: she made a very strong and a very positive impression in a very short time.
Re-post from IMHO, just so the word is out:
the FUCK?!
I DIED?!
Count me in as one of the people who’d be realfuckin’ interested in those wake details, since a corpse-less funeral should be pretty fuckin’ strange. Ditto that fuckin’ obituary.
NotOkay–You sick fuck. What you just did is so fucking disturbing. I know we’re not supposed to accuse people of being trolls on this forum, but I beg special circumstances, Mods. Plus, this isn’t an accusation; it’s a FACT. This motherfucker is NOT my brother, and that was such a gross violation of forum rules, not to mention moral decency, I hope you’ll immediately ban this user (not that that will necessarily stop the fucker from popping back up with some other sn, masquerading as a normal human being…or will it?).
All: As fucking upsetting as it was to log in and read the board for the first time in a week and see some shithead griefing you all in such a disgusting way, the words you all said were jaw-dropping and extremely touching. I’m horrified and completely mortified that your profound goodness was exploited on my account by a fucking slug of a human being.
I’ll fill anyone in who wants to know what I’ve been up to this week, which has been a whole lot of medical bullshit and out of town travel to see specialists and FINALLY a diagnosis of gastric ulcers, on my other thread. That is, if I can pull off a double resurrection–one for me, one for my thread.
To that end, Mods–Can you reopen my thread? You wouldn’t want to make the girl who can’t use her arms have to copy and paste everything in it to another thread, would you? 
And if it needs to be said, I am a-okay, y’all! The AD riddle has been solved and I’m feeling right as rain.
…Or did you think a fuckin’ tummyache could really take me out? Please. I survived a fuckin’ broken neck. FTS INLIKMD! 
[My blinding rage pressed me to ditch my usual expletive self-censoring for this post. Sorry if your children are reading…but why aren’t they in bed anyway??].
A link to the umkay resurrection thread you started:
the FUCK?! - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board.
I’m going to lock this – and leave the other thread locked – while we get this straightened out.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
Investigation is continuing but it does appear the community has been subjected to a cruel hoax/nasty joke of some sort.