I am so sad...

...

It has been a long time since I felt compelled to post, since I really had something personal and of import to me to share.


I have been reading a fellow blogger here at blogger dot com for some months now. Not because her blog is fun or informational. But perhaps more because I found great value in her blogging the experience of her son dying of cancer.

Yes ... it sounds weird to say that ...to think that one might find value in the great sorrow of another. But I really do ...did.

Over the months I have been following her she has spoken of both the joys and sorrows of such a diagnosis. She speaks so lovingly of her son ...so intimately of her own reactions to the whole 'thing', the whole situation. She speaks so strongly and from the heart about her own doubts about today, tomorrow, the future. She speaks so strongly of the unknown and fears and unanswerable questions we all would have in a similar situation.

In my many years online I have never found a blog that spoke so freely and intimately of matters of great importance to the human condition. She was always one of my first stops when I hit the web. I never failed to find inspiration or value in her posts.


Today I found her blog blocked, available only to 'invited readers'.

Perhaps her son has finally passed and this is a reaction to that. Perhaps the comments on her blog have become too challenging to read. Perhaps the growing attention I have seen her blog draw over the last few months, perhaps she is drawing back from that. Perhaps she has lost her ability to continue to tell her story coherently and clearly.


I am literally at the verge of tears thinking of the worst that might have happened, at the pall of grief that might be hanging over her and her family as I write this.

At the same time I am almost embarrassed to think that my being able to see her blog (such a minor concern...!!) should be of any importance now.


It seems silly to worry about a name on a computer screen. But we all come to know, to value, to cherish the names, the words, the thoughts we see every day online. We become drawn into their lives intractably, knowing that we can pull back at any time while they continue to meet daunting challenges and tasks.


Anyway . . .to my friend and her son ...my fervent hopes and prayers that things are going as well as they possibly can for you and yours. My thoughts mean nothing in the here and now. But I humbly and hopefully offer them regardless.


...tom...
.