Ishtaria´s Memorial

Paying our respect to TDF members and their friends and family who have passed on.
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Ishtaria´s Memorial

Post by TDF_Management »

The following is a message from The Doll Forum´s management.

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Please feel free to post your comments and experiences that you might have had with Ishtaria, let´s remember her strong will and determination to be an outstanding person to the very end, as we give her our last goodbye and our most sincere condolences to her family in this moment of tragedy.

Rest in peace, Ishtaria, you will NEVER be forgotten...

The Doll Forum.

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Post by Fargo »

The message above me is authentic, and indeed comes from TDF´s Moderators Forum.

We all need to be strong at a time like this, I´ve shed my tears for Ish, but let´s not forget how hard she worked to keep this place from falling appart, she was always there whenever we needed her, and always offered a helping hand to whoever asked her for help and advise. We people around here in The Doll Forum are not like a family, we ARE a family! and the least that I could do for Ish, is to let her know what a wonderful person she was, even if I never personaly met her, I always had the feeling that she had a strong character, and was determined to achieve her goals no matter what.

Good bye Ish, rest in peace, and God bless you, your death will NOT be in vain, because you helped me to become a better person with your outstanding personality.

My condolonces to Ish´s family in this time of need, may God bless their souls, and all of us here in The Doll Forum.

Amen.
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Post by Keithallen »

Amen, Fargo.

Not too long ago, I spoke to Ish over the phone. We were talking about the current Doll Album crisis. It was one of those times that Ish was ready to "Give it up" (I'm sure we remember a few of those threads). During the conversation, I noticed that I could hear rain hitting the roof of the van that Ish was living in at the time. I thought, 'Damn, that is dedication. Ish is living in a CAR, and still is upset to tears over the Doll Album.' Folks, you can't get more dedicated than that. As Fargo said, it was a dedication to family.
Ishtaria, you will be sorely missed, and never forgotten. We thank you for all you have done, and the chance to become a part of your life.
May your spirit reside in peace.

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Post by B3F11dolly »

Nice idea, thanks to whoever had it... I've got no time to do so now, so I'll post my personal experiences with Ishtaria later. I've got to think about fitting words anyway before. But as the memory already mentioned Ish's doll, I want to add the picture I found 2 days ago :

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Starr - a beautiful doll
Ish - a fantastic person

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Post by Meschler »

Ish was the heart and soul of this forum. I wish i have known her better. We all will miss her. Sorry, i cant find any more words.

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Post by Stef »

Ish was a nice person. We had a lot of similar opinions and we used to send PM's from time to time.
I especially remember when we talked about Canada about 7-8 months ago and her desire to move there (her father is Canadian). I gave her a couple of contacts so she can find a job there.
She didn't feel at home in USA anymore, that's really too sad that she didn't have the opportunity to move to another country & start a new life. Even more now.
Rest in peace sister.

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Post by Keegan »

I remember whenever I had computer questions or questions about the Forum, Ish always took the time to explain things to me, as simply as possible, and never made me feel like my questions were stupid or that I was wasting her time.

We exchanged PM's a few times, just talk about things in general, and once we even talked about the possibility of her coming to California, but she said if she did make a move like that, it would probably be to Canada. I think she had some family there.

Ish loved this Forum. with all the work she did adding new servers and revamping the entire site, it was practically her Forum.

I only wish she felt she could have talked to me, or ANYONE in this Forum, about her situation, or how hopeless she felt. I wish she knew just how many friends she really had here, and how we could have helped her, even if it was only to talk.

Part of me is very angry that she took her own life. Another part of me is very sad that this wonderful soul is no longer with us. But always in my heart I will remember her. And as long as we remember her, she's never truly gone.

She lives in US now.

Until the next life my friend.

Keegan
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Therapy is expensive. Popping bubble plastic is cheap. You choose!

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Post by mytime »

Hi All,

Ish was a great person who devoted a lot of her time into the Dollforum and the Dollalbum.
I've had PM exchange with her too, quite often.
She was also an inventor and had a ton of ideas, and had superb knowledge of computers.
But all things might not help her to find a well earning job in USA.
She lost her home and has lived in a van.
She will be missed very much.
I think one of her dreams/last will is that The Doll Forum stays in the air in future.
At thursday I saw already a shadow that bad days might come for Ish, cause I got a PM from her, which was scary, and warned Bill but I never had expected this.
I & Helen volunteer to put big efforts into keeping The Doll Forum running.

Mytime & Helen
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Post by Wanda »

I did not know Istaria, except through his efforts to create and maintain TDF. Through that work he gave me, personally, a lift in my life that I have very much appreciated. Unfortunately, I never bothered to write and tell him so. I regret that.
Wherever he spirit may be now, I hope he is at peace.

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Post by B3F11dolly »

- post too long, but this is what I feel -

Let me try to find the right words, although his is extremely hard for me, because I didn't know much about Ish. When having a look at the date when I joined here, you have one reason why. I feel extremely sad about what happened, we all do, but it took me a day to find out why it hit me that much, if I didn't even know Ish that closely. Aw man, it's hard to do her justice on the one hand, and on the other hand not to start glorifying what I didn't even know. But first off, here are my real life "contacts" with Ish :

Some weeks ago, I was lucky enough to meet Ish in the chat room. We wondered about Laggie always kicking people off the chat. Someone sent her a p.m. asking what it's about. About 10 minutes later Ish entered the chat room, she had a diagram to show. While we were chatting, she already traced the internet connection of the member who p.m.ed her, from his home to some internet junction in Western Germany, across the big pont, connection to some US junctions, all the way to the server, as if it was the easiest thing to do. She mentioned some strange peak on the diagram, wondering if it's about that junction. I said that I'm just 100 km away from the other person, and I don't get kicked off that often. So she traced me, and with me, the diagram was okay. So Ish concluded it's about the provider ( I have another provider than the other member ), and told him to sent the diagram to the provider. That's how I got to know Ish, and how I see her now : Traced, solved, Ish. If I had about 1% of her computer knowledge, I was happy all over. Ish tried to explain how she traced, saying it's no miracle what she did, but to me it is, I didn't get anything of what she said. A few minutes later Ish left to enjoy her pizza.

A few days later I was in the chat room again. In the list of members logged in, you can see administrator status. Suddenly the chat door opened and admin(admin) entered. We all wondered, and finally someone asked "who's admin", and admin answered "it's me, Ish". We invited him to stay and talk a bit, but Ish was busy tracing some log-whatnots again, and just said something like "you enjoy the chat, I solve this problem".

That's my contact with Ish already, apart from that, I only know her posts. And I see this forum, and having a simple but hand-coded website myself, I just know enough about programming to see how very difficult this forum is to run. So my real "knowledge" about Ish is not so much about her person or rather personality, it's more about what the forum itself tells me about her...
Others already mentioned this dedication for the forum, some kind of positive ferocity, maybe. Ish created what we see here today. She not only offered time, knowledge and stuff, she fought for this forum, yes, she must have loved this place to do so, even at the end, when being in vital trouble with her own situation.

Ish's job was to keep this place running. So she was always on the move to improve, always busy, always concerned about the overall situation. Most people here join to find information, lots of them disappear after they found it. But others stay, find friends, love to come back and share their knowledge, like me, I always try to help others, like I was helped here myself. But with moderator-status responsability starts, and being an administrator means a lot of work. Like that, most administrators try to concentrate on the job they have to do here, thus staying a bit more in the background, watching other members have fun, and having a controlling eye on things.
As I felt things, this was especially true to Ish. She was something like the chief admistrator in person, the programming goddess with unbelievable knowledge, making all this possible. She tried to make the forum and the servers safe, she programmed ingenious routines to trace and exclude image harvesters. She did programming miracles that I will never be able to understand. Like that, Ish stayed even more in the background than others, and she repeatedly posted she wants to stay behind to concentrate on what she knows best : improving things round here. That's another reason why a lot of people won't really know her, just like me.
Ish put her own joy and fun behind the forum's needs. Nevertheless we all feel she was a nice person that we would have loved to know better. Unfortunately, now it's too late. This tells us that we all have to enjoy ourselves and have fun together, as long as we can.

As far as Ish's personal decision to end her life is concerned, there are two feelings inside of my heart. First off, I feel sorry. Like others said, we all would have tried to prevent this, to show a way to solve problems, to offer a helping hand, to share pain and so on. Nevertheless it was Ish to choose this end, for whatever reasons, and it was her decision and her life. So no one should feel bad about what she had chosen, but we have to respect the situation now.
Next I feel a strong anger rising inside of me. Not because of Ish, because I can't understand her end, or because she kind of left us alone, whatever. This anger is about society.
See, a few days ago here in Germany 15 people died because the roof of an ice stadium collapsed. People wanted to see a reason in it, starting to ask questions like "Oh Jeez, why oh why ?!?" - That's stupid, because there is no reason. Being killed by a collapsing roof is bad luck, that's it. Next people got the crying fits "Oh Jeez, so many kids among the dead, why oh why ?!?" - Bullshit, there is no reason.
Ish killed herself. Society blames suicide, pretending to live in a nice and enjoyable society where everyone has a place to be and find love. Unfortunately that's not true. Society blames people in the name of being lovable average happiness, society drives people into a corner because they are different. And no - once someone is on the downside of life, society does NOT offer a helping hand, but they tread on you. So in the end, if someone commits suicide, he will be blamed for it, because that's not what society wants, because it shows that society doesn't work. Now no one asks "why oh why ?!?", but people will say "what an idiot". But with suicide, this is where people should ask why, unlike a collapsed roof, suicide always HAS a reason. You don't just kill yourself because you had a bad day, or because you feel like being in the mood to do so. To be that much in despair is a long way to suffer...

Now I reached far beyond my "experience with Ish". But I feel like Ish will have been through all this in some way. Ish is dead, so she can't tell us the reasons anymore. But there were reasons for sure. If there is a "sense" in all this, or if Ish could read all this now, she'd probably want to explain. She'd want to make us understand why there was no other way to go, at least in her way to feel things. And her message would be to enjoy this forum, life, and our friendship here.

Ish,
we all feel thankful for having know you, your devotion round here
we all enjoy what you worked for that hard
and I just hope we can keep this forum running without your help
because it's a nice place, and to keep your work alive.

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Post by spud »

Being a new member, I hadn't much a chance to get to know her yet. (or anyone else here) However, I was surprised when I read about her dilemma living in a van, and that still she was worried about this forum. I think that shows how much she cared for the others she worked with in providing this forum. It's unfortunate that there is a much higher suicide rate in the transgender community, and a shame that someone with apparently so much talent wasn't able to see that in herself. My condolences to those of you who knew and cared for her.

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Post by DaveC »

I have nothing but fond memories of Tina, our Forum colleague Ishtaria. I, like so many who have posted here, always received timely help and advice whenever I contacted her and the few PM’s I received were always happy and up-beat. I respected the fact that she never suffered fools gladly, and God knows we've had a few over the years. In my experience, she has always dealt with people, with the utmost fairness.

I don’t think it has really sunk in what a massive loss to The Doll Forum her absence will be and I only hope that people cleverer than I, can take up the reins so ably handled by Ish and keep the Forum going, in her memory. I’m sure it’s what she would have wanted.

As others here have said, this particular Forum is like a family, more than any other I have encountered. It’s kind of Ish’s second family, one which she kept a nurturing eye on.

Although I am deeply sad at her loss, I draw comfort in the knowledge that she is surely now at peace and her memory will live on through all her friends here on The Doll Forum.

I think it would be fitting if Fargo did us the service of posting his image of her avatar turned into an angel in this thread as well. For that is how I’ll always remember her.

Dave.

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Post by PBShelley »

I wish I could have chatted or PMd Ish, but the time I did her PMs were disabled because of getting too many. So I never followed up because I figured she just wanted to be left alone. There were so many times I wanted to and wished to, but now the chances are gone :cry:

I wanted to express my appreciation and thanks to her for keeping us together, and TDF a safe place, and now I can't and she never knew.

I never was aware until very recently that she liked King Crimson, and would have loved to share talking about them with her. Now we won't be able to.

I wanted to tell her how beautiful Starr was (and is) and what a lovely doll she designed, and now I can't.

I am wishing that I didn't view a lack of response as an "I don't like you" thing, but I'm hard-wired that way. Just figured she never cared and didn't want to be bugged. So I left her alone and never had the chance to get to know this wonderful caring person. It really pisses me off, but that is so swallowed up by the pain I feel at losing our dear friend, one who cared for us, watched out for us so resolutely, and made TDF such a GREAT place to be that it doesn't matter. Every day there are fewer and fewer caring people, and Ish was definitely one who cared; for us. She will be missed so badly...

I still can't believe that she's gone. So much waste...

I am comforted though by our family's support here. Don't ever change; don't give up; reach out when you are troubled; love one another.

It's so goddamned simple.

Good bye Ishtaria. I wish I could have known you better, and offered help when you were in need.

God rest your soul...

PBShelley
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Post by putzzz »

i didnt have the opportunity as some to converse with ish, only a few pm s back and forth back when the forum was in need of help for a new server provider. in the pm's , ish showed a love and dedication to the forum. i m deeply sadden'd by ish's decission to leave us. i m having a problem understanding the reasons why someone who helped and offered guidence for so many, couldnt be helped by someone.

my condolences & prayers to ish and her family

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Post by ric »

I didn't really know her, but did read quite a few of her posts. My heart and wishes go out to here family and friends.
The brightest stars burn out the quickest.

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