Sometimes life is extremely trying!

Between the two Parkland high school survivors who committed suicide in the past week and the Newtown father who ended his life yesterday because of the loss of his child in the Sandy hook shooting in 2012, it’s been a tough week to read the news.

We read the news and feel sadness and oneness with these survivors of extreme events, wondering how we ourselves would be able to go on if the roles were reversed.

Imagine walking past your child’s bedroom every day- never hearing their voice again, never smelling them, touching them. Cooking for them, helping with homework. I need not say more.

The only thing I can think of to write is to share an NPR story I heard one day on the way home from work. NPR interviewed lots of people who had lived past 95 years old (I think). They asked these old folks what they thought were the reasons why they lived so long, and the common denominator in almost every person’s answer was this:

COPING WITH LOSS.

Coping with loss is really hard, I can tell you that from experience. Some loss takes months to get over, some ... years. It doesn’t have to be death to be loss.

Sometimes the loss never goes away, it just gets compartmentalized for a somewhat relatively peaceful coexistence. The ugly monster pops up his head every now and then. We never really get over loss- it just seems to be moved to the back burner. Time goes by and survival occurs little by little, one breath at a time.

This sure ain’t horticulture, and I’m sorry for that but not sorry at the same time. We gotta stick together in this world, and if one person gets something out of this tidbit I’m passing along from NPR, then the time it took to write this will not have been in vain.

And... whilst driving kids to and fro I saw this flagpole flying shamefully in town. I find it an interesting symbol of hatred at a time when there’s way too much hatred flying around.

I used to have a confederate flag on the front of my mustang when I was in college in Raleigh, NC. Lotsa people did, it wasn’t a symbol of racism nor hatred. That was the south back then. NOW, however, people see it this way, and I also figure that it might just be a symptom of mental illness.