Song of the day:
Video of the day:
There has been so much loss in the last two weeks, really in the last several years…loss of life from COVID-19, of course, which continues to be awful, loss of friends and family members from a variety of causes, but also the loss of beloved figures in the worlds of sports and entertainment, most recently John Madden, Dan Reeves, Betty White, Sidney Poitier and yesterday, Bob Saget. These deaths seem to be coming more frequently and at such a pace that we don’t have much time to process what’s happening from one to the next. Yes, some of these celebrities lived full lives, well into their 90s, but some died much younger from long-term illness or causes not known.
It can feel odd to mourn the loss of someone we didn’t even know, but we mourn nonetheless. Because at some level we did know them. We knew their characters on TV or in movies, we knew them from social media, we knew them from interviews and articles and more. They made us laugh and cry and feel…and that’s why we mourn, I think, because we know they’ll never be able to do that again. Honestly, I’m still not over the death of Chadwick Boseman and cried off and on through Black Panther yesterday. I’m guessing it will always be bittersweet to watch that one.
As I mentioned the other day, the first week of this year has been brutal, and I anticipate the next few weeks are going to be more of the same. A lot of people died and many more were injured in an apartment fire in New York yesterday, and I’m sure there were car accidents, shooting, and other deaths we didn’t hear about. We don’t seem to be able to get COVID-19 under control and there are going to be more and more deaths from those who refuse to get vaccinated. It’s heartbreaking.
I saw a retweet from a friend on Twitter this evening that seems to fit this time in our lives perfectly:
“I think as a society it would do us wonders to take a masterclass on grief. We are going to keep losing beloved people and eventually most of the people we love in real life. This is the bittersweet deal we make to be alive, to live, to be loved. It will always be a gut punch. But the more information we have at our fingertips all the time, the more we will experience the loss of beloved public figures together- in a society that demands we sweep our own grief under the rug and get back to it. But we shouldn’t. We are grieving.” (from @noahharald on Twitter)
I hope you can find some light this week. I found a little yesterday when I took my first walk in months around my neighborhood. I’m honestly not sure why I stopped walking regularly but it felt nice to see the houses and the lawns and the cats again. I even stopped to take a couple of photos. They made me smile.
Even though I can’t stand the rain, it brings the flowers and that’s never a bad thing.
I hope your week is quiet and calm, filled with joy and hope.