Sparkling Adventures Pt 10 - David Pleads Guilty - Merge

[Tiny Bubbles]

No. There isn't closure when you lose a child. It's the club no parent should have to join. But you learn to stand and usually the waves of grief don't knock you down, just sometimes they overwhelm you.

I started reading about Lauren because of that connection, and of all the fundies she makes me truly angry. My son had a terminal disease. We always knew what the outcome would be, I just truly, truly thought we would have longer than we got.

Every member of my family has gone through some level of grief therapy in one form or another. Three years and counting later and a couple are still in weekly therapy and still battling their grief. And even then a cross country move 1.5 years ago ripped a nasty band-aid off for my poor kids and they all bled their grief everywhere and everyone landed back in therapy all over again because it was like it was brand new all over again. And my siblings got angry that I was putting so much into keeping my kids alive and felt I was ignoring them and threw temper tantrums that fractured my extended family that still ricochets through our lives.

That is the normal grief of a terminal disease that we knew from the day he entered our lives we would face one day. And some nights, I just want to scream from the emptiness and cruelty that he died so young.

There is no fucking way having her son murdered by her husband is neutral, not for her and not for those girls who have never been allowed to grieve, and taking another biological brother and giving him away (because Daniel is Lauren's biological son and half sibling to those girls) is the cruelest hurt I think she could have EVER concocted to destroy those girls.

I don't care what people who have encountered see. They see what she dictates reality is to be. She has denied her daughter's the right to grieve, and I have never, not once met a family who lost a child where the that death was not one of the most defining moments of the siblings lives, something that either crippled them in survivors guilt and an inability to grieve for fear of hurting their grieving parents more, or catapulting them to great depths of compassion and committment to how they approach life when given the chance to process and grieve as each individual child requires until each child is stable and strong again.

So, no we're not okay here. But we are integrating death into the fiber of who we are, and more times than I can count caring for these siblings was the only thing propelling me forward and when they stabilized last fall, my own grief open up like a chism in my soul but I addressed and we integrate it.

Lauren not only claims Elijah's death is neutral but she has declared it will not be allowed to be a defining moment of their lives. But she doesn't get to choose that for them. The sibling bond is the strongest tie that exists between humans. Just like unhealth in that tie can cause great harm the lose of a sibling IS life altering, whether you want it to be or not.

You can face death and grief and seek health and healing. Or you can run from it and deny it and it will eat your soul. If Lauren wanted to choose that for herself that would be her choice. It's not okay that she dictates it for her daughters.

Thank you for this post, c.l. You've done a great job communicating. My condolences on your terrible loss.

[Paperplate]

Lauren removed Elijah's entry ("Memories of Elijah Rainbow" or something like that) from the "special features" bar on the left of her website. It used to be right at the top, now it's gone altogether.

[Blahblah]

Wait, what? She's an aboriginal now?

[sparkles]

Lauren removed Elijah's entry ("Memories of Elijah Rainbow" or something like that) from the "special features" bar on the left of her website. It used to be right at the top, now it's gone altogether.

[chaotic life]

It's still there at the bottom.

I honestly was not angry at her when I started following her blog. I started following because she was immediately ahead of me in the grief journey as my son was dying. The choices she has made and seeing how she has refused to allow grief in her daughter's lives is what did it for me.

I can't copy and paste on my phone. Her 1/17 post, she says she can trace her heritage to an aborigine woman from Tasmania so now that they live in Tasmania she can introduce her children to their people. Quite the cultural appropriation there!

[waterandrocks]

I've read Lauren's blog for years. Before Elijah died I just found it quirky. After he died I found it disturbing. Reading the summary to this thread, with all the crazy packed into a couple of paragraphs, I am truly horrified. I really never thoughts about all those things at the same time before.

[DaisyD]

Thank you for sharing Chaotic. My husband and his first wife lost an infant to SIDS. I met the baby before he died, we were all friends. I have done everything in my power to be as supportive as I could over the last 17 years, but it was not my loss. I can not truly understand what he's gone through. He was really screwed up over it for a long time. I do think he's been able to move past grief now, and lives with the loss, but I don't know if I'll ever really know. That's a place in his heart I don't get to see. In the end all I could be was a safe place. So while I don't know for sure, I do think it gets better. It takes time. But you have to deal with it, things were really bad while he was avoiding it. It didn't start to get better until he was able to find some small bit of peace.

My heart aches for you Chaotic. It sounds like you are moving towards a place of healing. That's not to say there aren't scars, but you're not letting the wound get infected. Sometimes that's all you can do.

[chaotic life]

My family had one advantage in this grief journey. We knew it would happen and we signed up for it.

I thought that would matter a lot more than it has, but I have a friend I support who came home to find a healthy pre-teen had committed suicide, and I had a patient this weekend who lost an 11 year old when s horse bucked him and the carrot he was eating got lodged in his brain. Or, Lauren's husband took their infant son for a walk and drowned him.

At least this journey wasn't something we didn't know would happen to us. And I truly think ultimately my kids will thrive in part because they want to carry on his legacy and the lessons one little boy that world called unlovable taught all of us about living and loving.

The kids still in therapy are there because it hurts. But even they are protective of weaker humans and compassionate in a way that blows my mind because of their brother.

A group of the kids, myself and one of my best friends are running a 5K in his memory this month. That's a huge step for us. We've only cried a little and will only cry a little more, I expect.

I would just hate to be the admission committees that have to read my kids personal statements for college and beyond. Two want to be doctors, one wants to be a NP and one wants a PhD in Biophysics so he can find cures to terminal diseases. He used to want to find the cure to his brother's disease but then decided no one should have to lose a loved one so young so if he can cure diseases that kill, he doesn't care which ones.

[DaisyD]

That is a beautiful legacy from such a short life. What wonderful people you are raising. Love and hugs to you and all of your babies.

[ladyaudley]

she must have changed that last night, when I looked at the page yesterday it still had the old header! She's also changed her "about" text - not a "nomadic" mama anymore. Does anyone have a screenshot of the old one? I'm sure it's quite different.

Interesting that Elijah's tab is now at the bottom.

She is a graphic designer by trade, so there's no way these changes are not thought through very carefully...

I'm so excited. :cracking-up:

[morri]

nice near alliteraive title. hope to see whats she up to :)

[chaotic life]

Honestly if she can feel safe and functional in Tasmania, a home and a support system where the girls can be cared for and have enough calmness in their lives to unpackage their lives could finally be a good thing for them.

There were a couple times over the last three years where Lauren admitted she was running from her pain and grief (no clue if the queen of editing her postings left those up or not). Running forever won't help her or her girls move forward, nor does denying their right to grieve. Those girls didn't just lose their brother. They lost everything including their father who was far more frequently their primary caregiver than Lauren ever was at that time in their lives. And she has become estranged from most of her family since his death (that I COMPLETELY understand, we've had a similar phenomenon but it's still more layers of grief and loss to deal with).

[IreneIssh]

I just started down this rabbit hole this weekend while I was sick (Although engrossing, I don't think that Lauren's story helped me get better any faster. If anything it made me feel sicker) So, when google alerted me to her return this morning I was incredibly surprised.

I'm really interested in how many changes have happened on her blog even since I went to it for the first time on Thursday or Friday. Particularly the lack of emphasis on Elijah's story. I have avoided a lot of the Elijah entries after reading the discussion about the pictures she posted when they were initially released. Have all of the morgue pictures been removed at this point? I can't imagine that people responded well to them, even the devoted leg-humpers.

Also, comments weren't showing up at all when I read the blog this weekend. Did they just recently return or was I just dealing with some weird glitch-y business?

[happy atheist]

I'm really interested in how many changes have happened on her blog even since I went to it for the first time on Thursday or Friday. Particularly the lack of emphasis on Elijah's story. I have avoided a lot of the Elijah entries after reading the discussion about the pictures she posted when they were initially released. Have all of the morgue pictures been removed at this point? I can't imagine that people responded well to them, even the devoted leg-humpers.

The entry with the morgue pictures is called Double Dutch. It's still there.

There are also entries about his funeral, and coloring his coffin, and other things that are difficult to read but do not include the pictures.

[IreneIssh]

The entry with the morgue pictures is called Double Dutch. It's still there.

There are also entries about his funeral, and coloring his coffin, and other things that are difficult to read but do not include the pictures.

Thanks! Now I know which one to avoid. I read the one with the coffin coloring, and the year later post that included pictures of his grave, but I just knew seeing those other pictures would ruin my day, so thank you very much!

[blessalessi]

I don't think that we can make any reasonable or fair judgements about Lauren based on how she might have changed around the content of her blog. Her baby died and there is no single way to process that event.

I judge her for what I have read about the way she inhibited her children's grief process but I think it is a bit much to speculate on the meaning of the way her photos are arranged on her blog sidebar.

In a way, I imagine that the blog is a bit like "home" to Lauren in that it is a constant space she can return to. And after a death, no matter how tragic, most people eventually rearrange their homes and reallocate space to other family members according to current needs. It doesn't mean that the one that died is forgotten.

I would love to see that family settled into a physical home though. The girls have never looked as though they are thriving and enjoying the adventure, in the way that she claims.

[Oh auntie Em]

I see she's updated the blog to claim Tasmania as home now, and I missed she asserted in Jan that she's aborigine by way of Tasmania now. I'm sure that is her sparking new authentic. Wonder if that's an authentic anyone else in her family believes to be true or just her usual rewriting history to meet her current attention seeking wants.

Your didn't miss it, it is a brand new edit. Just checked the Wayback Machine. So authentic to insert a claim in a 6 months old post that attempts to portray that you knew that then and that it motivated your actions. So authentic.

[browncoatslytherin]

Your didn't miss it, it is a brand new edit. Just checked the Wayback Machine. So authentic to insert a claim in a 6 months old post that attempts to portray that you knew that then and that it motivated your actions. So authentic.

i thought that was a new claim! but i figured i just missed it in the post or something.

[chaotic life]

I thought I had read that post before and never saw that! Totally typical for Lauren. Authentic so long as you never notice that she constantly changes, edits, adds and removes to alter the perception the blog gives.

[AliceInFundyland]

I don't think that we can make any reasonable or fair judgements about Lauren based on how she might have changed around the content of her blog. Her baby died and there is no single way to process that event.

I judge her for what I have read about the way she inhibited her children's grief process but I think it is a bit much to speculate on the meaning of the way her photos are arranged on her blog sidebar.

In a way, I imagine that the blog is a bit like "home" to Lauren in that it is a constant space she can return to.

I agree 100% that we really can't make fair judgments about her thoughts based on a graphics change. We don't know what she's thinking. But that is precisely what makes her fascinating. She has a lengthy history of extreme hypermanagement of her internet presence. It's not the precise changes (for me anyway) that make me wonder what's going on...it's the fact that she disappears and then comes back with such a dramatic "i've changed" bang.

[August]

Now...

The putalina Festival celebrates Indigenous music and culture and is a gathering of people from across the state who are united by blood and/or purpose. I can trace my ancestry to a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman, so now that we’re in Tasmania, I’ve been keen to introduce my girls to their people’s community. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre organises the music festival each year, providing a terrific line-up of local artists for the crowd who today battled the sun, wind and rain (sometimes simultaneously) to show their support.

and then...

The putalina Festival celebrates Indigenous music and culture and is a gathering of people from across the state who are united by blood and/or purpose. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre organises the music festival each year, providing a terrific line-up of local artists for the crowd who today battled the sun, wind and rain (sometimes simultaneously) to show their support.

[Cheetah]

Good catch!

I'm not saying it's totally out of the question, but reminds me of all the US people who think they are "a little bit Cherokee" or whatever and then get surprised when they do a DNA test to find that, nope, it's all 100% Northern European or whatever.

[ladyaudley]

ooh, I *did* think that that wasn't there before. I managed to get a screenshot of the old header and description, too:

so "we're travelling Australia in a small housebus" has become " We're based in southern Australia and travel in a small, colourful housebus". That makes me hopeful!

[LovelyLuna]

Our long national nightmare is over. After going dark for more than 6 months, Sparkling Lauren has begun posting again. And she has short hair!

Nothing of substance has been posted yet, but dare we hope for a flurry of backdated posts?

words can not describe how cautiously happy I am right now. :pray: :cracking-up:

could she be going with an extreme change again? hopefully it is a persona that believes in better child care.

[Blahblah]

I could be way off the mark, but don't Aboriginal people get access to a broader range of benefits and assistance? I'm hoping she isn't going down that path but I'm cynical.