812th Friday Blog Roundup
Kymberli died this week, and the world lost a really awesome person. I keep erasing this sentence because… it’s hard to sum up your experience with a person with words. If you knew Kym, you know exactly what I mean by an awesome person. And if you didn’t, it’s hard to convey her humour and wisdom and kindness in a flat blog post.
Instead, I’m going to point you to one of her old posts from 2012. Partially because I love it. Partially because it hurts to know how the story really ends. Partially because maybe you’ll get a feeling for the woman if you didn’t get a chance to meet her.
She noticed a spike in pageviews, and she tied it all back to the same reader. She writes:
Someone out there is reading my story. I mean really reading it, all 756 posts. She started at the beginning and is working her way up, post by post, through my life.
I didn’t notice how she managed to find her way here. Was one of my posts a search result and she got so sucked in that she had to see how it all started? Which angle of my life is it that keeps prompting her to click Next Post?
Is it the story I’ve told as a mother? As a mother-after-infertility? As a gestational surrogate?
I feel like a character in someone’s good book that she can’t put down. As I am the author, I am flattered that someone is so gripped by my narrative that she’s spent literally hours a day here reading.
I can’t help but wonder, “Does she already know how the story ends?”
An explanation was going around this week about how Jews don’t say rest in peace in regards to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Instead, we have a say amongst other things, “May her memory be a blessing.” And it’s appropriate here. May Kym’s memory be a blessing on the world, and may we all carry ourselves with a little extra kindness this week in her honour.
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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.
Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.
As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.
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And now the blogs…
But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:
- “Feeling Gaslit Again” (Infertile Phoenix)
- “Hollow” (Stirrup Queens) —thank you, Jess!
Okay, now my choices this week.
Bereaved and Blessed captured Kym in a blog post. And she said it best: “I am better off for much of what I’ve let into my life, especially dear bloggy friends like you.” This strange new medium, this way of connecting that came about when we were more accustomed to making friends offline. We all found each other and let each other in. It’s a tribute to Kym, and it’s also a tribute to the friendships found online.
FinallyMyLinesNow has happy news before her retrieval: a euploid embryo in the freezer. The nurse delivers the news, and everyone tears up. And, well, you will likely tear up reading this story, too. And smile.
Lastly, In Quest of a Binky Moongee writes about the Bunny and Okra’s third birthday. She comments that the last three years have gone by so fast, but I was thinking about before they were here—all the hoping and waiting. I love this—I love that the kids in our community grow up, and we get to continue hearing the story. Happy third birthday!
The roundup to the Roundup: May your memory be a blessing, Kym. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between September 18 – 25) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.
8 comments
I’m so sorry to hear about Kym – I enjoyed her writing.
I didn’t know Kimberli, but from reading a few posts, I can see that the world is a poor place without her in it. 🙁
What?! Oh my goodness…what happened to Kym? Had she been sick? I lost track of her when she stopped blogging… This is incredibly sad news. I remember when she wrote about Nancy passing away…and now she’s gone, too. Wow just wow.
As with the death of anyone we love/care deeply about, these early days feel so surreal. There’s a line I’ve always appreciated from the movie Threesome that just popped into my head and I Googled it, to confirm the exact wording, “I wonder how some people could be such a necessary part of one’s life one day and simply vanish the next. Isn’t it supposed to last?”
That’s one of the things I struggle with in grief, how people come in and out of our lives, some because circumstances change/we grow apart and/or in some instances because of death. When it’s a combination of both it can make grief that much more complicated.
Thank you for sharing my tribute to Kym and for linking to her blog. I wrote my post off the cuff, in depths of my early grief. Later that day I started searching for posts on my blog in which Kym commented and/or I mentioned her/linked to her blog. There are a lot.
It was so incredible and sad and affirming to dive into conversations we had so many years ago in the blogosphere and I find comfort in knowing I can return to Kym’s words, to feel her love and support, as well as to be guided by her wisdom, anytime I want.
When I tried clicking through to her blog from one of my old posts I got an error. I tried at least one other way and came up short again. I’m not sure what was happening, but I gave up and thought maybe she hadn’t kept it available online before she died for some reason. So seeing your link was good made my heart leap and I spent more time this morning clicking through some of her old posts and looking for/finding more communication Kym and I had in the comments of her blog over the years, which was so good for my soul and reminded me again why she is/was so awesome, as you say here.
It’s been awhile since I wrote a comment long enough that could be another post, in and of itself, and maybe I’ll end up turning this into another post related to Kym’s legacy/impact on me. Kym’s death has definitely reminded me how much she and the ALI Community meant to me in those early days, before Facebook and such. She/you all helped me through some of the most difficult and uncertain times in my life and I’ll be forever grateful for that.
Sending peace, love, and comfort to all those whose lives are better for letting Kym in and who are grieving her death. She is/was such a blessing to us.
I’m grateful that you sent me to that post of Kym’s. It’s almost always wonderful to go down ALI memory lane, but in this case it was especially poignant.
Kym was one of a kind. So smart, sassy, authentic, creative…everyone who knew her was lucky to know her.
What a loss for us all. I’m grateful for those days of blogging together.
I’m so glad you included Kathy’s post about Kym; I was going to mention it for second helpings otherwise. She also posted about Kym on Facebook & while the name didn’t immediately ring a bell, as soon as I saw her photo I recognized her & remembered her. I don’t seem to have her blog in my blogroll anymore; I go through periodically & delete any that I can’t access (or the domain name has been taken over by spammers), so it was lovely to go back & browse through some of her posts again — thank you for the link! I wonder if her family knows how many of us remember her & were so sad to hear this?
As Lori says above, I am so grateful for those early days of blogging, and for all the friends I have made online, through blogs & elsewhere, over the years.
My condolences on the passing of your friend Kymberli. I did not know her, but after reading the post you linked to here, I find myself wishing I had the time to go back and read through her archives myself. Maybe someday.
Thank you for writing here! I look forward to your posts, and esp. the Friday round-up.
Oof. I remember Kymberli and think we may even have tried to meet in person once (it didn’t happen). I loved her writing and she helped me understand so much about especially (but not only) surrogacy. I’m so sorry to hear she is gone.