Many years ago when I still had to unplug the phone to power up my computer I started this blog. I had just adopted my daughter and everyone in my large circle of family and friends wanted to know how she was doing. Instead of trying to write twenty emails a night, my computer guru friend Paul helped me set up this blog and I just emailed the password to everyone I knew and tried to write a little something every day. That was in 2005. Some of you weren't born yet.
I had a unique angle. Nobody adopts a 13 year old girl from Russia. My first experience as a mom was trying to mother a child almost as tall as me who didn't speak English. There were no guidebooks. The terror was real. Blogging helped me process it.
I digressed.
I was stunned and horrified to see that Heather Armstrong a/k/a Dooce died yesterday by suicide. I read her blog devotedly for years and admired her writing style. I haven't read her blog much in recent years because I often disagreed with her politics but occasionally I would check back in. I had no idea she battled alcoholism. I guess we never really know what someone is going through, even if they are in the public eye. I am very sad though, for her family. She left behind two daughters and a long-term boyfriend.
She was a thin, attractive person with great mothering skills and phenomenal writing skills. She seemed to have it all, and yet we never really know how someone is feeling inside.
Blogging seems like a quaint word now, sadly.
So many bloggers I used to read don't even write anymore. Two bloggers I read faithfully, Andrea and Hallie, stopped blogging when they went through personal crises -- the breakup of Andrea's marriage in a particularly horrible way, and the death of Hallie's son by suicide. I've never met either one of them in person but I loved their blogs. Neither would call herself a writer and yet they both have boatloads of writing talent and I have always been envious.
For me, writing has never been easy. I am jealous of people who do it almost effortlessly.
I digressed.
I will pray and send healing thoughts to Heather's daughters. They are in high school, which is hard enough without losing your mom.
We are no strangers to suicide in my family. My son lost his older birth brother to suicide, when he was 6. It's very cruel to those left behind. He also lost two friends to suicide, in recent years. We have to do better at helping people get past being suicidal. As a country, we have to have better access to mental health treatment. So many of the shootings that happen are because the shooters are suicidal. Do you know how difficult it is to get psychological help? It's unaffordable unless you are wealthy. It makes me incredibly angry.
Here endeth the lesson.
#ripheatherarmstrong, #suicidesucks, #goodbyedooce, #bloggingpioneer, #mommybloggers, #suicideispreventable
