Tag: loss

I normally do not write about current events in this series, but this is actually related to experiences that I had when I was little.  Many of you who read this regular series are familiar with the people to whom I refer to as The Girl and The Little Girl, two people extremely dear to me.

The Girl is 19, and her beautiful daughter is three.  Their family had two cats, Bella (whom I call Lal after the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Offspring” where Data named the android that he created that from the Hindi word for “beloved”), and Jace.  Jace was a tom Tabby (actually more likely a Maine Coon Cat) who both girls lived dearly.

The girls were out of town Friday when I got a call from The Girl’s mum asking me to come and pick up Jace’s body from the street in front of their house.  He had been run over by a car, and by the looks of things died instantly because of massive head trauma.  I do not think that he was even aware that his demise was in progress.

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org

Originally published, Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 13:24:53 PM

Currently, I am writing for an educational organization.  In penning my pain for what occurs in our schools today, it occurred to me the same impersonal approach, awareness, or lack thereof, is evident in offices, neighborhoods, and in our broader community. People pretend to or believe they ” know” their fellow workers, their family members, and their friends.  Yet, more often than not, I observe that this is not necessarily true.  I, we, she, or he only comprehends what is visible on the surface.

Few choose to ask of, address, or answer the deeper concerns that life delivers daily; I offer this narrative and request your reflections. We all have our own tale to tell. I invite you to share yours.  Please trust that I care; your secrets are safe with me.  I suspect that others will honor you as I choose to do.  I believe we all relate to sorrow.

Today the distress I wish to discuss is heartbreak, heartache, and heart felt feelings. In my own life, I am witnessing that many close to me are battling life-threatening illnesses. Their terminal diagnoses affect me deeply. They weigh heavy on those closer to the ” patient” than I. I cannot begin to imagine the pain long-suffering persons feel. Yet, through the quiet trials and tribulations of a teen, who supposedly studied under my tutelage, I learned. What we hide hurts us most.

My friend died on Sunday. She was 71. Had she been one of the wealthiest she would have lived longer. She was the mother of my Godmother, and I will miss her.

I share this with you for a reason. I loved her, my godfamily mourns her today, the funeral is tomorrow. Our family loved her, and her family worked hard for what they have in the world and did all they could for her, but it was not enough. Had they been a wealthier family my friend would have lived longer but she could not afford the best care in the world, and in America for far too many and for far too long there is often what you can’t afford and nothing at all to choose from. My late friend was 71. She was the grandmother of some of my best friends. She used to call me “Gig” and I tear up as I laugh in her honest hearted way at the fact that I never, ever knew why she used to call me “Gig”?

Sometimes laughter helps ease the pain.

More below the fold.

I’m still fucked up about this shit. I know it will come back.

Tonight I rock, tonight I get out of it, into y’all.

But tomorrow it will come back. teh pain.

I was hoping this would get better. I was hoping for some kind of help or improvement.

This went on for years.

Tonight, I gave up for the last time.

This isn’t some kind of prima donna histrionics.

This is just a final failure of trust.

This is a kind of death. I can’t trust him any more. It’s gone on too long.

And here’s the poem. It’s just history now.

But it’s a good poem. I like this poem. I can find some love in it. But, oh, god. Why do people have to give up on each other? Why is love so often considered irrelevant?

I HATE having to do this, but it’s on the plate.  

     Treat the captives well, and care for them.

    All the soldiers taken must be cared for with magnanimitty and sincerity so that they may be used by us.

    This is called ‘winning a battle and becoming stronger.’

    Hence what is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations. . .

                               –  The Art of War

    Military contractors do not seek victory, but, “prolonged operations.”

    Instead of breaking minds and bodies in order to win hearts and minds, maybe we should have read more history.

    I have recently read Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”. Although this book was written over 2300 years ago and in a time before drone missiles, military contractors and Military Industrial Complexes, I feel that it is a good book to read for everyone who would like to learn the age old and time tested concepts of military strategy.

Army Reserve Major Lance Waldorf passed away in Holly Township, Michigan, on Monday, 2008 June 02, from a self-inflicted gun shot wound.  He chose to take his own life in Great Lakes National Cemetery, leaving behind some photographs, a note, and his will.

From Inland, at the GOS, “I hope there’s an eternity where the Major is as happy as he was in that photo.”

Major Waldorf served in Ghazni, Afghanistan, as a part of the 414th Battalion, a unit from Southfield, Michigan.  More details can be found at source 1 and source 2 and source 3.

Several Louisiana newspapers carried the Associated Press version of the Baton Rouge Advocate article on the Loren Scott & Associates study on the economic importance of the Port Fourchon energy complex.

In the style that has become expected of studies for hire, the report lays out the case for which it was produced, namely that getting more money to raise the road to the the port is a very important project. However, in making the case, it ignores the reason that the road must be raised – a sinking coast and rising sea levels.

Here are the opening paragraphs of The Advocate article:

Port Fourchon services 90 percent of the deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and even a brief interruption of services would cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, a study released Thursday shows.

The Greater Lafourche Port Commission, which commissioned the study, hopes the information will help convince Congress to fund upgrades and repairs to the area’s levee system and the $250 million shortfall for an elevated highway and bridge from Golden Meadow to Port Fourchon, port director Ted Falgout said.

It’s understandable that the Port Fourchon study would not mention the reasons the road must be raised are due, at least in part, to the significant energy industry contributions to the destruction of coastal marsh lands and the climate change producing the rising seas.