Surviving the unthinkable

When we made "Constellation " in Alabama I was recruited to help with a local cause. It was a group that dealt with surviving family of victims of homicide. A core agency that gave free counseling and money and support to the survivors of such a horrific thing. There are many people who get left and it is devasting. So while we were in town I was working weekends and days off talking to folks in the surrounding area getting them to donate money because the program did not get federal funding and it was needed.

I hugged a lot of very sad people it changed my life.

I learned a lot about grief and death, I have had an interest in death and dying all my life and have felt we give the event almost ass backwward attention.

No one wants to die a violent death and certainly it can't be fun. Yet we do die, every single one of us. I think we need a lot more attention in the good sense toward the event.

Also, it is okay to discuss it. To talk about it, to indulge, ask questions, talk about the fears and to be held in it...why are we as a culture so quick to recover.

Sadness is essential and our souls need time to remember the dead.

Meanwhile this weekend someone I had met (once or twice) was murdered jogging in the middle of the day this past Friday in lovely Vancouver B.C.

She was beaten to death. She was a prominent local figure from a prominant family and she was caucasian so the press on this is enormous.

Versus the everyday deaths of the local native woman who are drug addicted and happen to be prostitutes who get whacked...little to no press.

The bad thing is obvious it isn't good to murder or be murdered. The up side of this is that that park will be a lot safer then it is now because a daughter of the city has been slain.

Stuff shifts for good when "cherished" ones die...Especially prominant daughters of a city.

Okay I am bringing up too many issues here, race , murder injustices all around.

It is a death and a tragic one.

Yes, everyday someone is murdered everywhere and it isn't pretty , good or nice.

I am sad for these people and I am sad for all of us who meet untimely ends.

To Michel and his girls...condolences.