The Wars

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/


These are the faces of the fallen. Today there are  5,854. every day the number increases.  When it will end, I do not know but sorrow has no bottom to its depth.  What we have really lost cannot be counted.  I do not have words enough to express my grief which pales in comparison to those who have accompanied the flag-draped coffins to burial.  The deserts and hills of the Middle East are stained with the sacrificial blood of Americas finest and bravest.  The river of sorrows that flows around the world is deep and wide and mothers cannot find solace for their wounded souls.  Life in American can never be the same.  Something has been lost, something which can never be restored.  I will never know the America that was mine as a child. There is a dark and dreary cloud that envelops our land.  Freedom struggles for breath.  Our constitution is shredded within the walls of the Government by men who have sworn to uphold it.  I won't live to see again the glory that was once hers for bit by little bit pieces of liberty and nobleness are torn and trampled under the foot of evil men and women.  I almost wished my soul had be whisked to heaven before this day of trouble had arrived.

A Latter-Day Grandmother's Musings, & Tidbits of Wisdom for my Childrens Children

January 9, 2011

Sunday.  Alright, it's just another day.  A day which followed yesterday and comes before tomorrow. A measurement of time. A beginning just like the one in Genesis which starts: "In the Beginning" and proceeds to tell the story of how God spent the first 7 days creating the world: the sun, moon, stars, day, night, animals, plants, the bugs and even human beings to care for it all.

I have lived for 20,006 days and yet haven't created anything nearly as spectacular as the tiniest of God's creations, except of course my children who then gave birth to their children, my grandchildren, who will, God willing,  give birth to theirs and so on.  These miraculous events of the births of my progeny will be thus duplicated to infinity and beyond!
 
Today, I began a new but familiar journey through the labyrinth of memories within the caverns of my mind following a worn trail littered with emotions, thoughts, and experiences. As my fingers touch the keyboard I hope with each purposeful stroke that the record of this journey may in some way, some day, be of importance to those generations that follow in my earthly footprints into the eternities to come.

 

I have painfully discovered that the dawn of each and every sunrise which is brimming with new adventures and eternal hope is too often smothered by nightfall by the day's unhappy events.  These unhappy world events give me pause and apprehension for the minutes, hours, days and years that lie ahead. What will future events bring for my loved ones, my grown children who are leading their little ones and like the mother bird who nudges them into the big world to experience for themselves?  What will the future of this world be for the little ones who I now hold on my lap and who look at me with bright brimming eyes full of eager excitement?

I have begun a unique period of my life where reflecting is something I do much more than planning; where memories are as time-consuming in my mind as dreams were years ago.   My sensitivity to the world around me has erupted to the sky and back to earth many times.  There is an endless constant beat of the media airwaves and internet explosion on my personal lap top that is marching, marching, marching on around the world and back again in seconds.  A child dies in Ghana and I hear about it. A roadside bomb blows up an entire family in a village in Afghanistan, and within moment its on the net in vivid color, often in video with sound. A plane crashes somewhere in South America and within hours the mourning loved ones are interviewed by a cool mannered reporter who asks them to describe their feelings of the most heartbreaking of all heartbreaks.  The painful words drip from their hearts like blood upon the hard ground yet the cruel questioning continues.  Before my tearful eyes this constant scene plays and replays over and over like an old video stuck on replay.  This show is entitled "Life in the Latter Days" and is filled with conflict, with the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the unimaginable pain and suffering that cannot even be described in words.

I turn it on at the snap of my fingers, or the stroke of my keyboard. I see, hear, feel, and know instantly what happens to the ends of the earth. There seems to be no part of this life that does not touch each of us in one way or another, at least to those who sensitive to the world around us. What will the future bring? I do not know, but everyday I pray for peace and I hope. 

Yesterday a beautiful Arizona congresswomen while holding a meeting with her constituents in front of a Safeway store in Tuscon when a crazy 22 year old disturbed lunatic pulled out a gun and shot her in the head.  She was the lucky one. She survived but it will be months if not years of recovery.  There were 6 others that died, including a 9 year old girl who had aspired to be a future leader.  The dreams her parents had for her died that day also.  I heard her mother speaking today.  She described her daughter as beautiful and talented and smart. A description up until yesterday at noon she would never have conceived she would be using the past tense to describe her beloved little 9 year old girl. (to be continued) 
http://www.businessinsider.com/gabrielle-giffords-shot-2011-1 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011003134.html