Disappearing Act

Where did I go?  When will Part II of my riveting flu memoir debut?  Have I been kidnapped?  What the hell am I talking about?  You didn’t even notice I was gone?

I was kind of gone.  And very, very disillusioned.

About three weeks ago, the story of Marina Krim and her poor children LuLu and Leo, murdered by their own trusted nanny, grabbed a hold of and broke my heart, like nothing I’ve ever heard before.

I could not stop thinking about it, about them, about her.  I cried, I poured over the pictures of their family in Marina’s meticulously kept blog.  I scanned the headlines endlessly, looking for updates, for answers.  I felt somewhat crazy. I know my husband was getting a little nervous.
We took a weekend trip to Miami, and although I had a nice time, my heart was heavy- always, always thinking of them.
On the Facebook memorial pages for the children, I learned that thousands of other mothers have expressed the same feelings.  Somethings just hit you hard. Harder than other, perhaps equally terrible things.
Beyond the obvious, I’m not certain why I grieved so deeply for the Krims’ and for Marina in particular.  Is it because I also have a nanny, to whom I have entrusted the most precious part of my life?  Is it because she is the same age as me, and also a blogger like me?  Is it because I happened to be in the same city, just across Central Park from her home when it happened?
Whatever the reason, my sadness was not what kept me away from 6:30 and a Glass of Wine.
Within hours of the news of the murder of Marina’s two children, let’s call it what it was, the slaughter of her children- their tiny throats were slashed- the internet lit up with callous, vulgar accusations against Marina.
She must be a terrible mother anyway, why else would she have a nanny?
She obviously didn’t care that much about her children, why wasn’t she home with them?
What kind of a mother has time to blog all day?
She must have been cruel to her poor, uneducated immigrant employee. Yoselyn Ortega, the nanny, is an American citizen with a degree in accounting, incidentally.
They must have barely paid her, they must have caused her extreme misery.
Marina Krim who had done nothing more to become a public figure than walk into her bathroom and witness a scene of horror that we as mother’s could barely conjure up in our deepest fears, was attacked relentlessly.
And I hated those people.
I hated the forum through which they could spew their cold, hateful words.
I began to wonder, if the cover of cyber- anonymity can produce such a watershed of bloodthirsty, vicious commentary, what did that say about us? About humanity? Are we really that blackhearted?  Underneath it all?
I didn’t want to look at my blog, didn’t want to think about it. I remembered the unfeeling comments that had been hurled at me- that I was a bad mother, a bad writer, a bad example for women.
I hated that I had given those readers the opportunity to release their darker inclinations.

It was a bad few weeks.
I’ve come back from the edge a little. But I’m scarred. And scared.
I’m choosing to focus on the the overwhelming amount of kind and positive feedback that I’ve always gotten, and that the Krim’s are also receiving.
That’s where my head, and heart has been recently.

I wanted to share that with you all.

 

Heather Bogolyubova

About Heather Bogolyubova

Heather Bogolyubova has an un-pronouncable last name. A Maine native, she's returned to the Pine Tree state after several years in New York. Now, she's a newlywed, has a new baby, a new job, and lots of fancy shoes she can never wear in the snow. The job: Stay-at- home mother and wife. Its hard. She's going to tell you all.