Oh Barb, here's a cyberhug {Barb}

I definitely think you shoudl write your daughter a letter. One thing cancer is slowly teaching me is that I might not have all the time in ther world to decide to tell people who I love that I love them.

On the other hand, I also think that brainstorker's point that people who can't be supportive are toxic is a good one.

My parents kind of faded out on me when I was at my sickest but in genreal they've been supportive--supportive at a distance because that's about all they can handle. And that's fine with me. I love them and I see, when I look back on how they've treated me at times in the past and how they've treated one of my siblings, that they have never had a real ability to be supportive of a child in need (as opposed saying things that are somehow supposed to be seen as supportive but would make anyone feel worse). But I love them anyway, and i tell them so from a distance that protectc me as well as them.

I'm having sort of an opposite problem in that I have a sister who had acted really horribly to me for about three years when I found out I had cancer. Now suddenly she's publicly posting these loving-sister messages on my caring bridge page and my parents seem to expect that all is now healed between us just because of that. And it's not that I'm carrying a grudge-- I can forgive her for being herself, but I can't *forget* how truly mean her behavior was in those three years, not just to me but also to my parents at one point, and I truly feel, more than ever, that life is too short to want to spend much effort on someone who is so toxic. I have so many wonderful loving friends and I've spent 25 adult yeasr hoping for some sort of authentic relationship with her without success. A few months of occassional "loving sister" posts on a public board where my parents can read how "good" she's being doesn't really change my mind about this.