Beccah, Ditch That H!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the story in today’s Chicago Tribune about the young lady from Mokena, Illinois, Beccah Beushausen, who blogged her way to fame on a mostly made-up story about being pregnant with a terminally ill child who died soon after birth. I never had the pleasure of reading her blog and today was the first I heard of it. It was followed by thousands of pro-lifers eager for affirmation of their beliefs, and it drives home an important point: don’t believe everything you read, even if it agrees with you! That goes for us pro-choicers too.

Trust, but verify.

Having said that, I have to hand it to her. She is apparently a terrific writer who knows how to push emotional buttons. That is one thing I have never been able to do. I can tell a story, but I can’t sap it up and any excess emotion gets tempered with a little comedy thrown in. I also have a very hard time making up stuff. You could say that I have a dearth of imagination when it comes to generating sentiment. Go back and read the story “A Tale of Two Babies” earlier in this blog. Every fact in that story was corroborated, verified and approved by the mothers of the babies before I hit that “publish” button.

Beccah (and if I were her, I’d get rid of that superfluous h at the end of her name, since in Jewish tradition H is the childbearing letter and she misused it, whether she’s Jewish or not) has some choices. She can channel all that writing talent into cranking out a couple novels. That’s a positive use of her gift. Or she can appear on Oprah and The View and apologize over and over, telling, re-telling and crystalizing her sad story. Not so positive. Of course, the visual appearances would be more lucrative and less hard work. And money, especially easy money, is one thing we can all use.

Or she can fade into oblivion, having experienced her proverbial 15 minutes of shame.