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