1-7-11

-
I fell asleep on the couch at 7 p.m. tonight. At 8, I took Bailey out for the night, and we came upstairs to go to bed. Here it is 2 1/2 hours later, and I'm still sitting at the computer. I communicated with a friend via Facebook after someone posted a snarky comment on her wall that spending too much time on Facebook did not set a good example for her daughters. Those were fighting words to me because my friend is an amazing woman. She is beautiful and funny and smart and driven. Above all else, she is an amazing mother. It is at moments like this that I despise social networking. It is so easy for people to post insensitive comments without thinking of how they will be received. My friend admitted to me that the comment made her cry, and she wanted to close her Facebook account at that very moment. Another friend of mine had a similar reaction a few months back when she and her brother had "words" over a comment he had posted. 
I think it goes back to my thoughts about our "convenience store" mentality from a few days ago. We relish the 24x7 service afforded to us online without taking the time to really understand how our words might affect another person. 

While I was on Facebook tonight, I also read a story that was linked by another friend. It was a story about a young man, 27, who was a PhD student at Princeton, He died of an apparent suicide and left a long letter about how the domestic and sexual abuse he had suffered as a child shrouded him in darkness. It was a powerful and tragic story.

So much pain in the world -- from an insensitive post on Facebook to enduring sadness from a traumatic childhood. It sounds so cliche, but until you stand or walk in another's shoes you can never truly know them. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dogs Dogs Dogs

-
Image
A couple of days ago, I went on and on about how much I love chocolate/sweets. One of my other loves is dogs. And, most specifically, I love me a good herding dog. This affection started when I was just a wee one, still in diapers. Here I am with Dusty, one of our first Collies.  Then came Goldie. She still reigns supreme as the #1 Collie when we were growing up. I think I was 6 when she came on the scene as a puppy. She truly was one of the family. She particularly loved going for boat rides with us on our many Sundays at our Grandma's cottage at Lake Delhi. (Lake Delhi...well, that's a story for another day.) Lassie was popular on TV around this time. At one point, my mom stopped letting me watch it because I would cry and cry at every episode. That's remained constant...I have copies of Lassie Come Home and a collection of the best Lassie episodes. Yep, you guessed it. They still make me cry. From the original Lassie Come Home with a young Elizabeth Taylor and R
Read more

Suppose God is Black

-
On my way home from work tonight, there was a story on NPR about a speech Robert F. Kennedy made in South Africa in 1966. A new documentary, RFK in the Land of Apartheid: Ripple of Hope , is set to air on PBS later this month.   Whenever I hear speeches made by the late Senator Kennedy, I marvel not only at his engaging speaking abilities, but am inspired by the thought provoking and forward thinking ideas he espoused during the turbulent times of the 1960s. Kennedy opened his speech at the University of Cape Town with these words: I came here because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-17th century, then taken over by the British and at last independent; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application of modern technology; a land which once impor
Read more

Gone Without Saying Good-bye

-
Image
It's been one week since we laid my dad to rest. Dementia finally claimed his worn mind and body. We wrote in his obituary that he died from dementia   because so many people assumed he died of COVID-19. But, as I have been reflecting in the past week on his passing, I do consider him a victim of the virus not because he was afflicted with it, but because we were forced to be separated from him for the past month.  I think he just gave up, thinking we had just abandoned him. When my sister called the nursing home to check on him on April 2nd, they said they were getting ready to call us. They said he had been asking when people were coming to visit, but his brain could no longer comprehend or remember the details of the pandemic. They said after two weeks he stopped asking, and stopped eating, and slept all the time. He lost more than 20 pounds during that time. By April 6th, they had advised calling hospice. He died on the morning of April 9th. We are comforted that on
Read more