This blog has sat abnormally silent for quite a while now and more and more people have been reaching out asking me why. I guess that's because I'm not what most people would consider a private person. I've always been a pretty open book. Never was that more true than during Ellie's life. I felt very strongly about sharing Ellie's story - mostly because I wanted people to know and understand Ellie so they weren't uncomfortable being around her. After Ellie died the need to share her story and document her life was more important than ever. As I look back now, I think this was my form of denial in the grieving process. I felt like as long as I kept talking about Ellie and sharing her story she wouldn't really be gone. After a year of sharing I began to feel like the statute of limitations on openly grieving was up. I felt that people were growing tired of hearing about Ellie and I didn't want to be "that person" who forces their feelings on everyone around them. I couldn't bare the thought of people having negative feelings toward the memory of Ellie and felt a need to protect her. With those emotions as a driving factor, I progressed into a withdrawn phase of grieving and no longer had the desire to share with other people and as a result this blog fell silent. I still occasionally wrote down some of my feelings or documented some things about the kiddos, but I never hit the publish button at the end. I guess I just felt too vulnerable.
Now, almost a year later, as I am trying to reclaim pieces of who I used to be and things that brought me joy, I have decided I would like to start writing again and documenting this eventful time in my kids' lives. But I'm not ready to do it with an audience. I have gone back and forth and back and forth on whether to keep this blog public. There is a part of me that feels the desire to keep Ellie's story public and accessible for others facing similar challenges, but then I realize that our story isn't exactly comforting or inspiring. A parent receiving a new trisomy 4p diagnosis doesn't want to read about the child that ended up dying from complications. A new trach or g-tube parent isn't going to want advice or encouragement from a parent who failed to keep their child healthy and alive. That's like going to a morbidly obese person and asking for weight loss advice. I don't even have any inspiring perspective for families that have lost a child. All I have to share is the shattered pieces that are left of me and it seems to me like the only reason anyone would want to follow that is to oogle at the train wreck that I have become. For this reason I have decided it is time for this blog to be private. Not only will it be private from the world, but I will not be inviting any readers to this blog for the time being. Maybe that will eventually change. But for now I just need a little radio silence.
