Dear new mothers:

Don't be sad about how your body looks, worry whether you're still pretty, wonder where your youth went. Stop holding yourself up to society's standards, and you'll find yourself happier with who you are. Look at yourself through your children's eyes and you'll never feel low about yourself again. To them you are a goddess, you are the most beautiful woman in the world, your every mood is of prime importance to them; they watch and learn everything from you, including how to feel about themselves and about how they look. So for their sakes, learn to look at yourself as you would have them look at themselves.

Happy birthday baby

You'd be 29 today. I can still remember the morning you were born, the labor pains seeming endless but finally getting a sense of control over it, a vision of you finally in my life, of finally meeting you, and somehow that turned the pain into something I could ride, like enormous waves, without drowning. And now you are gone, and the drowning is every day.

We never really said goodbye. I don't see why we should have. We weren't finished yet.

On comprehending English grammar.

This blog is part of a collection of writers' blogs on loss and grief. Other writers/bloggers who come here know this. Up until recently there was no need to make it private: I wanted to keep it open so that others dealing with the loss of their children would be able to read here, just as they allow me the privilege of reading and sharing their suffering and loss.

The typical reader of this blog knows it's a writers' journal.. Context is important. If you stumbled on, say, The Onion, and read an article without knowing it's meant to be sardonic, you'd think you were reading a real news article. If you read someone's private handwritten journal, you might realize you can't know if the entry includes everything they felt or believed or learned on that day. You might understand that it's only a daily entry, meant to capture a particular feeling or moment in time.

In the case of a writer's journal, it helps to understand English grammar well enough to read a draft on a blog and know 1. that a blog entry is not meant to be complete, it's only part of a work in progress, 2. "draft" means that it is not even a final blog entry, much less a complete take; and 3. that this entry is subject to change and refinement. So  if you don't realize what you're reading, that's the first missing piece of context you need to understand what's being said.

. So with that in mind let's examine the statement:

"You've become a nasty rumor because you're the only thing they have to point to. And you, not she, not her father, you and we are the ones who have to live with that and all the unjust and cruel consequences that may come, for as long as it lasts."

The word "that" is a pronoun here, and a pronoun refers to its antecedent, that is, the subject or topic that precedes it. Since the sentence before it talks about a person ["you"] who has become the subject of rumors,  "[You've become] a nasty rumor" is the subject, which the word "that" refers to. It does not refer to any events that took place previous to the rumors.

Clearly, "not she, not her father" means that those two individuals are not involved in "the consequences" of the rumor. It doesn't mean that the author thinks or believes that "she and her father" are not suffering more over the tragedy that started those rumors, and it's poor reading (at best) to think so. No one who reads this blog can believe I don't know and honor the reality that the parents of a missing child and the child herself suffer more than any other people involved in the situation.

Furthermore, other entries in this blog have made it abundantly clear that there is far more to the story than what was written in one blog entry. However, because of the controversy that's ensued, it no longer makes sense to address the tragic situation in this medium. It was a struggle to decide to continue this blog, when so many have been mistakenly led here in blind anger, looking for someone to attack. I've chosen to keep this blog public for reasons already stated. The only way I can continue to be a part of a grief support network that means so much to me is to stop talking about some of the grief.

A calm and reasoned reading of this blog should reassure anyone with an objective mind. If you'd like some more information on the use of pronouns and antecedents, please refer to: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/pronante.html

Welcome

It took some thought to reopen this blog. It seemed to be causing distractions. For those of you who don't know, this blog is primarily about losing my son at age 22 to leukemia which he contracted after he volunteered at the WTC site right after 9/11. The audience is people who know me, other writers and bloggers, and most important: parents searching for support in grieving the loss of their children. Other losses in my life are mentioned, naturally. It all feeds into the same learning process, and the same support system.

It's unfortunate that so many are willing to dig into the lives of innocent people--including hacking a missing girl's private messages and page--and make no mistake that is what happened. If she did not invite you to read her private messages, and you figure out her password, that is the definition of hacking.

Reading here isn't hacking, I am letting you look at what grief looks like, in the hope that it will help other parents who have lost children. It's worth the price of some folks misusing this blog. Hopefully some of you will realize that posts on this blog, private messages from her FB page and elsewhere, were deliberately taken out of context. misrepresented, and twisted into something they were not, to feed a rumor mill that does nothing to help our lost family member or her father and sister.

This blog was closed out of concern for the families. Both families are in mourning right now. Those who actually know her know that she was one of us, too. She was a daughter and granddaughter, and niece and sister to us. She was part of every family celebration, and she was proud to call us family, and we were proud that she chose to be part of ours. We never thought twice about supporting her in every way possible. Neither family deserves to be subjected to the online gossip elsewhere disguised as concern. Because that just makes them suffer, and does nothing to build the case to find the killer. She deserves better. Her father and sister deserve better.

Character assassination of the people who love her is wrong. Succumbing to the petty lies and distortions would be wrong too. So the page reopens. We want her killer exposed, and the truth laid out for everyone to see.

If you have come here with an angry heart, and look to find only "incriminating" information, there's still hope that at some point the words will reach you and you will understand that she had two loving families, that all of us are in mourning, and that we support and love her father and sister, and mourn with them, and do what we can to help them. If you ever find yourself in the position we're in, come back, and find an open heart and two ears to listen.

May you find peace.