So, so sad...

This and that (identical posts from Heather & Jon).

I feel so bad for them that I almost want to stop reading her blog (I have felt that way for a while now, unfortunately).

The saddest part for me was reading Heather's book sometime last year. I read it much too late, after they had already separated, which made reading the book all the more heartbreaking. I feel sorry for anyone picking up that book now and later finding out that their relationship ended.

The book, which I thoroughly enjoyed in terms of content because I hadn't been reading her blog when Leta was born, is as much the story of having baby and becoming a mother as it is Heather and Jon's love story and the child that came from that relationship. It's hard to imagine all of that being simply gone and over.

I'm glad that she's not going to be a second Elizabeth Gilbert, making lots of money from sharing all the details of her divorce (I really hated that about Eat, Pray & Love and other things too... I think certain people just know how to write to make money, Heather is not like that exactly...). She did write a lot about the family and their relationship and when I read her blog now I just feel like there's this HUGE empty space where Jon should be. The girls have so much of him in them and now that is just not talked about anymore. I don't like that. It's not the way things should be in my point of view... perhaps because of my upbringing and because of my family history: there are very few divorces in mine and K's family.*

It's sad to think that Heather suffered so much because of her parents' divorce and now she's going through it too. And that this is Jon's second divorce. And that there are two girls who will have to live separate lives with each parent. Oh well, what can we readers do, nothing, obviously. I just feel a bit bad that I cannot feel very sympathetic. I don't know what they're going through and I hope I never will, so I don't want to know. I know too that they will be OK, but I still feel sorry for them and... yeah, for us, the readers.

OK, enough of this rambling. Back to regularly scheduled business...

*My dad has seven siblings and there are ten grandchildren on that side (including me), all married. There were only two divorces: my dad oldest brother (back in the early 70s) and one of my cousins. In my mom's side there are five siblings and eleven grandchildren. There had been no divorces at all until last month when my cousin, after 25 years of marriage, decided to split from his wife. In K's family -- both his dad's and his mom's side have no divorces, only among my mother-in-law's cousins.