Dominic Moore's Comeback After Wife's Death

Finding this story in the sports section of the New York Times is a positive sign of how far we as a society have come in our ongoing discussion about grief.

 

Who would have thought even five years ago that a professional athlete would give an intimate interview about dropping out of playing his sport to care for his wife in the last months of her life and how her tragic death changed his priorities?

 

Dominic and Katie Moore

 

The world of professional ice hockey is full of ice, blades, speed, sticks, pucks, mixed in with a very heavy dose of testosterone and ego.  Once the gloves come off in the heat of competitive play, you know that some kind of awful fight is about to begin and someone will lose teeth and/or break something.

 

It is not a world of talking about your feelings or inner emotions.  It is not a world of taking time out to heal yourself.  Toughing it out is what it's all about.  Why do you think professional ice hockey has something called a "Power Play"?

 

Moore, 32, was playing for the San Jose Sharks when his wife, Katie, was diagnosed in the late spring of 2012 with a rare form of liver cancer.  He took a leave of absence during the 2012 playoffs while she fought her cancer and Moore did not play last season either, when Katie, 32, lost her battle on January 7, 2013.  Following her death, Moore also started a charitable foundation in his wife's name called the Katie Moore Foundation.

 

Now Moore is back and as a unrestricted free agent with a one year, $1 million contract, he will be playing for a new team: the New York Rangers.  With his decision to make a comeback, he courageously talked to reporters last week and openly discussed his time off while taking care of Katie and how he spent the time after her death.

 

"Dealing with the disease and what we went through, it's a lot to try and describe in one simple answer," Moore said.  "But one thing I'm grateful for is the time we had.  In a way, those months were the most special months with each other that anyone could possibly ask for, despite it being the most difficult and painful months that anyone could possibly deal with."

 

I think Rick Carpiniello, who wrote USA Today's story about Moore summed it up best: "Regardless of your NHL allegiance, if you are not rooting for the Rangers' Dominic Moore next season you need to go out and get a heart."

 

Here is the New York Times story about Dominic and Katie Moore:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/sports/hockey/coping-with-painful-loss-new-ranger-is-returning-to-ice.html?_r=0

 

 

Your Digital Legacy

Every day, several times a day, you electronically email or text someone, update your Facebook status, Tweet, take a picture on your phone or record a moment from your life which you want to save and remember.

 

Just as the internet opened up a whole new world of information sharing in a way no one could have ever foreseen, these electronic tools such as iPhones, computers and other gadgets strive to further break down the walls of communication and help us share everything in a way that wasn't possible even five years ago.

 

But with these communication opportunities comes a responsibility to filter what you put out there and take care that this information doesn't land in the wrong hands and used improperly.  In other words, whatever it is that you said and did, are you sure that it will only be received by the person you sent it to?  And no one else?  What happens to all this electronic stuff after we are gone?

I was thinking about these questions because the husband of a friend of mine died suddenly just about a year ago and his widow is still processing on many levels what happened.  She recently was going through his home office and found his laptop.  Her husband was a writer and she was curious to read what was stored in the his computer.

Did she know the passwords to his computer?  No, she didn't.  Could she take it to a computer store and get them to unlock it?  Yes, she could.  But did she really want to go through his computer files and emails now that he died?  She knew that whatever it is that she would find on his computer, he wasn't here to explain it's meaning or intent to her.

To me, this is the proverbial Pandora's box.

The whole idea of a digital legacy is becoming a very common issue and it's something people need to figure out.

Companies have been started to help people open and transfer a loved one's data.  A number of books have been published addressing these personal and legal issues.  What will happen to all of your computer transactions should something happen to you?  Does anyone know your computer passwords?  Do you even want anyone to know your computer passwords?  How do you feel about all this?

In the case of my friend, she did decide to take her husband's Mac to an Apple store and there is a process that you go through in terms of showing proof about the situation.  Eventually, Apple did unlock her husband's computer.

So far, she hasn't opened anything up and looked or read anything.  She says that she keeps the laptop opened up on the table next to her home computer so that when she is working on her computer she feels he is right there with her.

If you want to read more about the various issues surrounding a digital legacy, this link will take you to an excellent USA Today story:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/story/2012-05-07/digital-mourning/55268806/1