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Friday Aug. 10, 2018

We can’t say, “Oh, it’s someone else – somebody we don’t know half-way around the world or other end of the country”. Closer. Here. When it’s someone we know, suddenly the magnitude seems huge, but really, it was huge the whole time – but when it happens to someone we don’t know far away it seems to matter less to us. It doesn’t matter less, it matters just as much. But if we aren’t connected, we don’t pay much attention. We aren’t even aware.

I am trying to find words and I’m at a loss.

What do I say to my friends?

They lost their son the other day in a horrid car crash. It’s not the how, so much as the finality of it – that rips at you just thinking about it but for me, for you, for most everyone, we call ourselves lucky because it didn’t happen to us or to our family. It happened to someone else. I cannot imagine how I could cope with that if it happened to me – so how can I expect to find words to comfort my friends in some way? It didn’t happen just to their son, it happened to them. Horrible, permanent and irreversible …

Reader feedback:

AVERAGE IS NOT A PLACE

I am reminded by your post this morning a song that changed how I looked at things not only in my life but in how to react to others. The song is “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson. If you haven’t heard it or listened to it before I encourage you to. This song is so true to your post. We can’t change others we can only look inside us and see what we need to do to change our reaction to the world and the people in it.  Keep Smiling and keep Blessing people. You do it well!, MJ, Calgary, AB


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