When bloggers lie about loss.

I posted earlier about a blog I had come across that devastated me. It was one I had never read before on which a BLM reported that her sweet little rainbow had been killed in a car accident.  

A short while later a firestorm of comments showed up on her blog, and around blogland, claiming the story to be false. Some of the info to back up these accusations were the fact that some of this blogger's dates on her timeline didn't add up, or that her actions (such as blogging as her daughter was passing or shortly thereafter) didn't make sense.

The truth is, I don't know what the truth on this story is. I don't know anything beyond what this woman has chosen to share on her blog, and I can only react in the way that feels right and good in my heart to the information I have been given.

Are her dates screwy? Maybe. But in the spirit of full disclosure, until someone mentioned them, I hadn't even read her timeline.

Is blogging right after the death of your child strange? Define strange. After Peyton died, the first thing, and I mean THE FIRST THING I did when I got home, was march across the street to return a bowl I had borrowed to a neighbor. Why? I don't know. Maybe I needed to say out loud, "my daughter died." Maybe I wanted to rub some of my pain off onto someone else. Maybe I was just plain crazy. People do strange things in the face of the unimaginable, who am I to judge?

I don't know if this woman is lying. Lord knows this community has had more than it's fair share of heartache over trolls and scams through the years, but I would rather show compassion and support to someone who turns out to be a troll, than have to live with having compounded someone's grief with accusations.

I will never understand how or why someone would pretend to be a babylost mom. This is a club that no sane person would ever join by choice, so to try to understand the actions of someone like that just seems a terrible waste of time. 

If this woman (or any other) is lying, then wouldn't the "worst case scenario" of reaching out to comfort her be that another little girl never died, and we as a community sent love and compassion out into the universe? If that is the worst case scenario of offering condolences to someone without knowing all of the facts... I can live with that. 

Babyloss is taboo and infertility is taboo and because of that many bloggers here choose to blog anonymously making fact checking near impossible at best and so yes, there is always the chance that someone in blogland isn't telling the truth. But that is something the person telling the lies has to live with, not me.

I have to live with how I choose to respond.