Well. I never thought a blogpost about knitting could spark someone's anger towards me, but I was wrong; apparently I have a stalker.

There have been several comments made on my blog in the past that have been rather aggressive of nature, but since they are all anonymous (of course) I have either deleted them or disregarded them. No big deal. However, I feel the latest comment needs addressing.

Comment made 11.28.06 - 1:31 pm
IP address: 216.68.116.17
If you have ever been in a search party to find a lost child and are very worried about what you will find, not to mention the physical exertion--IT IS HORRIBLE! This woman has a lot of time to mess around like she is a teenager. She needs to look after her kids! She is a total outrage--son gets out and is missing and then there is all this crap on the net! You all enable her to be irresponsible!
It Has To Be Said

Well. It seems I am surrounded by people who have the courage enough to convict me of things, and yet do not have the courage to tell me who they are. I've even gotten mail recently from an unknown source that would not tell me who they were. So, I ask this question of those of you who know me: am I so unapproachable that people must hide behind masks and false names to tell me what they think?

Anyway, to address the above post I am going to assume you know the history from which it speaks. If not, let me be brief: in 2004 my son let himself out of the house in the wee hours of the morning, climbed the fence to play with some neighbor's toys left outside, wandered away from the house and got lost. He was missing for two days, the two longest days of my life. He was four at the time, and thank God he was found not 6/10ths of a mile from our house safe and sound and was returned to our waiting arms.

Now...a lot of rumours were started due to his disappearance. Apparently no one believed that we had an extraordinarily clever and fearless 4 year old. No, he had to be autistic or something, because normal children just don't do things like this, do they? So someone told the police he was autistic, a condition which he has never been diagnosed as having (and BTW, my husband and I had a discussion with his teachers back in August and are going to get him an educational test due to the fact that he is hyper-active, brilliant academically, and yet a year behind emotionally than his students. However, due to the fact that he was "diagnosed" by someone as autistic in 2004, I do not discuss my son in public because people will want to believe what they choose. And I am, and always have been, open to the fact that my child had a special need in some regard, but I will not pre-diagnose him. I will let his doctor (whom he has already seen), and the professionals (who he will soon see) do that.) There were also rumours that we took him, we killed him, someone claimed they saw a body in the nearby river, we both had to sit through polygraphs, it was reported by Channel 2 that we had "cut off all communications with the media" (which was total bull, by the way...we just didn't want to discuss the matter with the reporter who was camped out by our bushes at 11PM that night).

Trust me when I say to you: there is no greater hell on this earth than sitting alone in a polygrapher's office, connected to wires and hearing him ask you, "Did you kill your son?" while not knowing if your child is dead or if someone is sexually molesting him at that very moment. To wonder if the police is doing everything they can to find him, is he okay? is he hurt? is he crying? And not knowing if you will ever hold your firstborn in your arms and kiss him or hug him again, or if you are going to have to go down to the morge to identify his remains. And to have these thoughts go through your mind over and over and over, keeping you from sleep while you pray to God to keep your son safe and return him to you and not knowing if that will really happen. So please, whoever you are who wrote the comment, don't you dare accuse me of anything.

If you are a volunteer who came out to help look for him, then I weep at your feet and kiss you for your generosity of time. I will forever be thankful. But to assume, because I take 15 minutes out of my day to report in a blog which has pretty much been neglected for the entire summer while I took care of my family to share with friends some of the crafty things I've done, that I am not taking care of my children goes beyond the pale. You do not know me, and you obviously do not want me to know you or you would tell me who you are. I would be very open to have a conversation with you if you told me your name, but to choose to attack me in my blog behind the face of annonymity does not make any sense.

Honestly? I wasn't going to say anything about this, or the packet I recieved in the mail (which, although I do believe had the very best of intentions, was a month too late because if the sender really knew what was going on they would have known I had already made arrangements to get David tested...but I seemed doomed to annonymous commenters, either in my blog or via the USPS) but I just don't understand it. Why is talking about my crafts equated with neglecting my kids? Especially when the time frame I do it in happens while they are tucked neatly and safely away at school? Can I not rejoice because I have my son back? Do I have to sit in a corner and fret that something like this will happen again, and not live? Or should I not let him enjoy life too, and have a little freedom that is appropriate for 7 year olds? Must we talk about nothing but the heaviness of life and those dark times of which we lived? Honey, I lived that nightmare most people only dream about. And at times, I feel *guilty*, yes, guilty, that my boy was one of the very few that is returned. And because so many of missing child cases do end in tragedy, I rejoice everyday! One thing I have learned is that you must enjoy everything in your life you choose to do: your family, your work, your food, your crafts, whatever. God has showed me that a life can change in a blink of an eye, and we are never prepared for it. For someone to call me an "outrage" and claim I am acting like a "teenager" because I am sharing a few frilly things that make me happy truly boggles my mind, especially when they chastize everyone who apparently enjoys this blog as irresponsible. Frankly, I don't know what to think.

You know, at this point I don't know who to turn to. Should I trust my family? Should I trust my church? Should I trust my friends? Do they all feel the same way as this poster? Or are these annonymous attacks coming from people I do not know, but just thought it would be fun to target a simple, uncomplicated woman with their venom? Then again, is it really venom, or am I just seeing it that way because I don't really have the right to enjoy things? Perhaps I should be graver and more serious about all things.

Anyway, I'm letting the comment stand. There is no sense deleting it, the damage has already been done. I hope the person is pleased.
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11.23.2006

LOTR knitting! Wootwoot!