There are times, fortunately not often, but times none the less when I am overwhelmed with sadness.  Days or moments when the world seems unfair. 

I used to be a very optimistic person, naive and optimistic, but now I find that I am learning to expect nothing and that bad things happen. 

Even now the other side of my brain is saying “There are wonderful things that happen too, focus on the positive, the glass is half full.”  I know these things are true and most of the time the glass is half full for me.  I am a very blessed woman.  But, if you will indulge me for a moment I would like just to wallow in heartache and sadness for one post.  I promise I will snap out of it tomorrow, but right now the glass is half empty. 

Today I learned that the father of a boy my daughter goes to school with died in a helicopter crash.  He was a photojournalist for the local news here in Arizona and his helicopter collided with another while they were following a police chase.  I have watched this man’s son grow up, he is a year older than my oldest daughter, and while I do not know him personally, nor have I spoken much with his parents my heart is broken for him and his family tonight. 

To make matters worse, there was a news story this evening that noted the same father’s granddaughter, he also has two older children, passed away this morning before he died in the accident.  Apparently this 5 year old little girl has had a birth defect and she passed away.  I know that this is not a coincidence and I know that there is a higher power or energy at work here, but it occurs to me that somewhere there is a woman that in a single day has lost her daughter and her father.  I am in pain for this woman and while I know none of these people intimately it all seem so unfair. 

Now, I know people die every day, I know there are people starving all over the world and there is genecide in Dafur.  I do believe that there is more than just our experience on this earth, but the pain people endure astounds me.  I just read a post from another person on WordPress that her 2 year old niece is dying of cancer.  She has gone through 3 rounds of Chemo and the cancer is still there.  Such pain.

I read this evening that it turns out Pat Tillman, the marine that was killed in Afghanistan, has wounds may very well have been at close range.  So when he was killed by fellow American soldiers they may have been less than ten feet away.  Generals and all of the might of the military still trying to cover this up.  This happens in the United States of America? 

Add to all of this that children are abused, and on rare occasions locked in cages by their parents, and my heart just weeps.  Why is life cruel? 

And I do not want any of the God is testing us, or everything happens for a reason crap.  Not tonight.  I am not arrogant enough to believe I should have the answer, but I am crying tonight for people, all people, but mostly those that are just trying to live a peaceful life, raise a family, make a living, care for a loved one and they are struck by tragedy – accidents, illness, violence. 

Tonight I am sad. 

I just tucked my children into bed and had an argument with my husband, a stupid argument.  In the light of everything that has happen today pretty much every argument or petty thing I have wined about since birth seems stupid. 

I am filled up when I hug my children and I hope, as Anna Quindlen says that “my children grow up without event and my life is quite uneventful…full of dinner table chatter and movie nights.”  I wish that for everyone reading this post.  May you have a life filled with such things. 

That is all from the laundry room tonight.

Peaceful Slumber!

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