Monday, September 10, 2012

How far we have come....

Scroll through these amazing photos from the Paralympic Games.....without crying.

I dare you.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Paralympic-Games-2012

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Sometimes life is a hard

We've just had a tragedy here, in my idyllic little town, and lost a beautiful family (mom and three children) at the hands of the oldest child.

The whys are unknown, but it doesn't appear to make any sense, to anyone.  Something had to have gone horribly horribly wrong (the kind of wrong you see on TV shows...not in your own lives) because this was a family just like mine, and yours.

Regardless, this family, all of them, had connections far and wide, and this loss riped a huge hole in our community.

The aftermath has unfolded on Facebook.  The children were 14, 17 and 19.  There are "RIP" pages and "Memorial" pages and groups and everything you would imagine. 

This is the third teenage suicide that has hit close to our home.  The first, the brother of a best friend, the second, a family member and this, the brother of a best friend.  I'm not sure, across the board, if the suicide rate is up in this country (I know it is among the military, which is tragic and heartbreaking), but it is solidly on my radar certainly.

In giving some thought to how I, personally, can help affect positive change in this regard, I came across a post on a FB forum regarding this event (posted by a wise mother, who I have not had the pleasure of meeting personally):

If you are in school I want you to do me a huge favor: Tomorrow I want you to walk up to that kid who eats lunch alone and ask if you can sit with them, if you see a kid on the playground without a friend..be that friend, that empty seat beside the person on the bus no one sits with.. sit with them, the kid who walks to class with their head down... talk to them! You may be the difference that person needs in their lives at that moment to change everything! We don't know what happened that night and we will never know why but as you walk through the halls of AHS, Murray, Sutherland or where ever remember these words: Be the change you want to see in the world! Don't let another friend slip away!

Touching, and true.  Could the answer really just be THAT simple?