Thanks for the quick response, dragonknitter. When a tragedy happens in a place where I know people, I wonder about what's going on with them until I hear something concrete.
(for "wonder about" you may also substitute "worry").
This is the kind of thing that makes me have to turn off the evening news - we will probably be hearing about it until the next tragedy occurs. (Maybe what we need is for the missing Mrs. Peterson to pop up and go, "I was on a round-the-world boat trip, anything happen while I was gone?"). I really don't understand the human capacity for evil - intellectually, I know all the reasons that are given. I know all the arguments: mental health services, gun control, all of that. But I do not UNDERSTAND it.
And it frustrates me, because it is my nature to want to UNDERSTAND things. I mean, on a more than intellectual level.
It's kind of the same as with my cousin's suicide of a couple years ago - I came to the point where I knew the reasons on an intellectual level, but I still in my heart do not understand it. I am still caught up by strange things. (I heard someone on the Green Bay football team interviewed, and he had the same kind of Upper Midwest accent my cousin had, and the same kind of deep voice, and even though it's been a couple years, I got choked up all over again).
At any rate. I find myself once again thinking, "You do what you can. You try to do those little acts of love and hope enough people are doing them too, so it all balances out."
I'm glad I have my three "Pay it Forward" people to start planning projects for.
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I finished my mom's gloves last night. That was all I got done because I had to make a trip to wal-mart for some stuff, and the Youth Group decorated the fellowship hall tree last night. (Well, by the end it was me and one other girl decorating the tree while the boys ran around like sillies).
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I watched part of the thing about Carol Burnett that was on PBS last night. They showed some clips from her show. I hadn't seen it in a while (they used to re-run it on TV Land). I had forgotten how funny I find it, and how brilliant a lot of the stuff is. (And how much I loved it when the actors started cracking up at some situation. One of the people who had been associated with the show said that Burnett rarely stopped tape when that was happening, because "She wanted the show to be funny, not perfect" and that Burnett felt that too many takes destroyed the humor. I think she is right in that. I loved her old-movie parodies - the bit where they do Gone With The Wind and she has a drapery-dress is one of the funniest things I've seen on tv. Especially because she comments at one point, "Oh, I saw it in a window and I just had to have it.")
2 comments:
they're talking about the help he got from the age of 14 on, and it sounds like he had repeated help on many different levels. however, they closed his case when he was 18, and could have received services until the age of 19. once again, kick them out so we don't hve to pay for them any more. my son's caseworker tried numerous times to get his case closed, but his guardian ad litem, myself, and the county attorney all said no. the last time she tried, the judge continued it for 6 weeks, and in that six weeks, he ended up hospitalized. it put paid to her ideas that "everyt'ing is fine." (i'm trying to mimic her accent, that was just one of a large # of things that drove all of us crazy about her).
i ADORE carol burnett. i didn't know that was on last night, or i would have watchd it, instead of the news coverage.
this whole situation just hits too close to home for me. it makes me want to cry
"At any rate. I find myself once again thinking, "You do what you can. You try to do those little acts of love and hope enough people are doing them too, so it all balances out." --Yes, yes, I think this too and try to teach it to my children. We can't control what happens around us or even *to* us but we can choose our response. Positive energy towards the good is always better than wringing our hands and crying (although sometimes that comes first).
-- Grace in MA
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