Interloper
I didn’t know of Snickollet, except by name in the comments of blogs we both seem to read, until I saw Sojournering’s posts this last week. I found her weblog the night before her husband died, and I’ve been reading her older posts ever since.
I always feel like such an interloper when I arrive on a blog in medias res, especially when something unthinkably horrible is happening; I haven’t been a longtime commenter, she doesn’t know me from squat, and I almost feel like I should just look away and allow her her privacy.
Instead, and uncharacteristically for me, I just keep reading and crying. I see M. and MM and me in her descriptions of family life. Her mother-in-law is my mother-in-law (minus the actual conversation; my MIL does a lot of her talking through M.), although I think the progression of the relationship is opposite to what she describes. Her babies are my baby, and every picture of GH holding one of them breaks my heart, because I do know what he’ll be missing. He doesn’t look like M. per se, but he has a similar build and a similar charming ruddiness, and you don’t have to read much there to know that he’ll be mourned and missed for a very long time.
I don’t know if this is offensive or tasteless or what. All I know is I can’t stop crying and my heart is really breaking for all of the Snickollet family. There are no good words.
