magikquilter August 19th, 2008
Was saddened to read, a month later, of the death of Tony Snow to cancer. Out of all the people who used to be on the Fox News Channel I felt he had the most integrity. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
magikquilter August 5th, 2008
Remember when I asked how we could know that what is said online is true and also how do we ever know anyone online? Well its turned around and really hit us in the face over the past few days. Recently my son and I have been involved in a situation online with a blogger he felt he has known well for over a year who left a post which stated that she was upset and her heart was shattered because someone had said something negative or untruthful about her online. She closed comments so that nobody could address her post or even show their concern. Nobody had any idea what was the matter. I left a comment (edited from we to I) on her previous post then we then sent emails asking if she was all right. No reply.
We then went over to the person we thought she might have been referring to and saw the post she was talking about. The young man was discussing how he was coping with the recent loss of his brother to cancer after a four year battle. He mentioned that the girl he had a relationship with online had broken up with him as he could not give her the time she needed. He was not denigrating her at all in fact he said she was wonderful.
I commented on the young man’s heartbreaking post, it was so indicative of his anguish that even though I had never met him before online I simply had to share my sympathy and concern. After a while I emailed another friend whose blog is part of this girls network and expressed how concerned I was. Meantime the OP was still not responding to emails or comments about how she was.
She then put up a post where she said thanks for your concern and links to a Hallmark card saying thanks for your friendship and started recounting the various losses she had suffered in July which included the most extraordinary tale of a little girl that she had lost in July…a virtual obituary. I was in the room when my son read it and I heard his breathing change….he said mum you have to read this …its really bad ..this little girl died. I went over to her blog to read it….scrolled down over the photos and saw where she had put something like….PS she’s not dead…. just seems like it to me.
We both felt sick and extremely offended that after three days she posted something which was so trivial about the anxiety that her readers had felt and then so warped in its perception of the “loss” of a child. We felt it was offensive on so many levels…it trivialised the losses my son has experienced, he lost a friend when he was in school and then there are all the children he has seen over the years who have lost their battles with various diseases….he has had a lot of loss in his life. So we left comments saying how this had made us feel….she had said in one of her previous posts that she welcomed friends telling her when she has said something wrong or when she has upset someone….said a real friend would let her know. Of course few do…her blog is known for its fluff after all. She quickly respnded by saying that she is sorry that her post caused us such deep offense. she also added throughout the post…she did not die lest you get the wrong idea….without saying why she did that.
Then we were attacked by people on her blog…by people who had not even left comments on that post for days…we were the first responders as it were. I then left a few comments trying to explain what we had felt and why we had so responded but to no avail. These mostly young people, although there is one there who is closer to my age have either said nothing to our defense or attacked us. there are two people who told her to lighten up and that they thought the girl had died too …but guess what they have not been so attacked. I tried to talk to her by email and all I got was you are judging me….about the boyfriend. Who incidentally took the post down which upset her…I can see why now…he did not need a posse of her supporters attacking him in his time of grief.
Today she put up a post where she again closed comments after saying how terrible she is feeling and how two of her supposed friends attacked her when she was so heartbroken yaddayaddayadda…so I have come to the conclusion that we have a slightly disturbed individual, who is also a drama queen, who has no perception of her impact on others. She has constantly bemoaned her singledom and the state of her friendships and relationships with her family …well duh is all I have to say.
You may think I am a mean and spiteful person posting this, I am in fact the mother of a wonderful human being who has done nothing but be a friend to this girl…I shudder to call her a woman… who has twisted everything we have said and done even to changing the post without showing where or how she changed it….making us look to future commentors like nasty vindictive people. My son recently had a blogging crisis due to ill health and she is aware of this but in my mind has no concern for anyone but herself…in discussing the little girl who was “gone” she said something like….I made her hug and kiss me in public cause everyone stared at us and I liked it…am not surprised the parents of this child took her away from that kind of manipulation.
Okay so what is really bothering me is how easy it is to be maligned here on the net and how people can reinvent history…we now look like the baddies here …while we were simply trying to help an online friend. Also I hate to be proven right about online relationships…although I know I do have some wonderful relationships but they have been forged through common interests like craft, thriting and pain or loss. I shall be encouraging my son to do the same.
Edited to say that I am a mother and that is something this young lady may have not taken into account…mothers will fight for their children no matter what age so an attack on my son is an attack which I will not hesitate to address
magikquilter June 22nd, 2008
My heart is breaking for Glen McGrath and his two children after Jane died today after a 10 year battle with cancer. She initially was diagnosed with breast cancer then 4 years ago it returned and more recently she again had a recurrence elsewhere in her body.
She became a tireless crusader for cancer awareness in younger women…along with the much loved Belinda Emmett who died 11/11/06 also after a long battle. Jane and Glen helped create a foundation for research into breast cancer and untold good has come from her disease. No doubt this does not comfort them tonight, yet hopefully in the future it will come to do so.
I am with the Australian journalist who named her the most naturally funny guest he has ever had on his programme Enough Rope with Andrew Denton. Although I would take it further to say the most brave and most inspiring. May she rest in peace and God grant her family the strength to endure.
magikquilter January 25th, 2008
It has been a few days now since I heard about the death of Heath Ledger. If anything I am more sad now. He had so much life ahead of him, so much of life to explore with his daughter. Perhaps his death was just a desperate attempt to get some sleep and was therefore an accident, he had obviously been troubled for some time since filming the Joker. From personal experience sleep difficulties are just that, difficult, and can impact both your day and night. It can take a long time to re-establish a sleep pattern and is quite a painful process. Some people never get a normal pattern back and have to adjust to life in a new way. The hours though when everyone else is asleep can be very lonely ones at first and very trying.
I remember him so well from his role in Monster’s Ball, an incredibly moving performance of a tortured soul. Then A Knight’s Tale, almost the polar opposite of the other. I have seen several of his other films but those two stand out to me for some reason. Possibly because he seemed so beautiful in A Knight’s Tale, in appearance and in his sheer youth and vitality. Monster’s Ball was such a different Heath and I guess that is the whole point, he became his characters and if in becoming the character of the Joker he ended up sleepless and moody then it is certainly too high a price for our entertainment or even for the sake of art.
One’s health is far too precious a gift to squander on a public that is known for its voracious appetite for amusement. If the role did not cause the sleeplessness then it must have impacted on him. How else could he give us such an insight into despair and madness unless he searched the very depths of his being? How long does that darkness stay with a person? Who knows if his sleeplessness was a symptom of depression but was just ignored because well, he must suffer for his art?
This art that has been shared with a world that probably doesn’t deserve such a gift, if John Gibson of Fox News Channel is anything to go by. What kind of a world is this where people like Gibson are so intolerant of anything that they don’t believe in that they will crack jokes about Heath on the day of his death because he played a gay man so convincingly on screen? Forget the later apology it was about who he had upset not what he had said and probably ratings driven.
Cannot people anymore tell fantasy from reality? He was an actor playing a role, but he was also an incredibly brave young man who must have known what kind of vitriol the role would engender. But could he ever have imagined a world where spite and small mindedness would mean that some members of the Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, Kansas would boycott his future memorial service?
He may have publicly discussed and privately reflected on death, much to the disgust of Gibson who seems to equate thoughts of death as being unworthy of the young, as if it personally insulted him somehow, but Heath was not afraid to examine the subject because now that he was a parent he felt that he could die as he would go on in his daughter. It does not mean that he wanted to die. I expect that he thought it was a long way off and hopefully in a different time when people are not judged for their skin colour, the sex of their partner or in his case the roles they were brave enough to undertake when they were young.
Rest well Heath, you achieved much in your brief time here and I am so pleased you were able to know the joy of being a parent, you who obviously brought such pride to your own family and to a wider audience. May all of us consider the people in our lives who may be suffering in silence. Do not also be silent, speak the words that need to be heard.
I am here for you.
It will get better with time.
It is amazing what humans can endure.
Posting tweet...
