What I've learned, part deux

I think there could be 1001 parts, but I'll stop eventually.

LIFE IS PRECIOUS.

Last week there was an article in the newspaper about an abortion doctor killing babies with scissors after they were born alive as part of late-term abortion. I couldn't read the article. It made me vomit a little in my mouth. I cannot have more children and would have gladly cared for one that was killed.

I once saw, but could never find again, a row of grave markers in Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum (an old hangout of mine) with the names of five or six girls - the entire family's children. Can you imagine giving birth to five healthy girls, ages 5, 7, 8, 12 and 15, all to die of influenza. I cannot wrap my mind around that kind of devastation.

Alutiiq photographs from the early-19th century sometimes show a deceased relative in his/her coffin - one I saw of a precious little girl about Abby's age. Many people who have lost a child or children. I cannot imagine that just because you have 5 children and loose 1 that the pain is any less than only having one and losing that one. To think of Abby's immortality is difficult.

When I was 15, I lost my first boyfriend. Although he had broken up with me, who could blame him, I was devastated. I won't go into detail, but I have lost several friends and a good deal of my family. Death has been challenging for me to come to terms with.

In Cincinnati, news stories of people being shot for a pizza, $1.00, or just nothing except to prove one's tough and ruthless nature are all too commonplace. To have such disregard for fellow man is a tragedy. To treat people cruelly, or even just to dismiss them because of your own shortcomings, is abhorrent.

I have learned to try to treat every creature (everything) with all the amount of patience, forgiveness, and courtesy I can afford. If I have a problem with someone, I am not going to just abandon the relationship, shut them out of what is just as rightfully theirs, and treat them with dismissive disdain, such as some horrid people I know. "Oh dear" indeed. (Part three I guess will be about loving all people....)

I am grateful for all that I have, which is a lot; I try to cherish each moment, for I am not going to get them back; and to respect others, even when they piss me off. Somehow living in a bubble so no can can hurt me sounds easier, but most likely I would just choke on the air.