The Day the Music Died

For all of you who have been in touch with me and my family over the past few weeks since my return from Korea... thank you for your love, support and prayers. They have helped us and comforted us, especially in some of the more difficult hours.


My Dad died this morning, September 20th, at about 2:15am. He passed on peacefully surrounded by his family. A service is still being planned for family and close friends. I will let you know more when things are settled. His care at the Boyle Hospital has been exceptional. The nursing staff were wonderful, and really helped Dad stay comfortable, and made us all "at home" in a very difficult time.

I will be in touch more again 1:1 when I am done dealing with some of the planning "realities" of the situation. Thank you again for all of the love and support you sent our way.

In peace, Shauna.

June of this year, just 3 months ago

Mom and Dad, goofing around (other picture with little D)
(she's pointing to his terrible socks)

We'll miss you Dad.

As dad wanted, we will have a small private family service. Following that, a celebration of dad's life will be held at Featherstone RV park, 2 miles east of Boyle on Hwy 663, at 7pm on Saturday evening. All of dad's friends and family are invited to attend.

He told me "I want there to be a big party, and it'll be 'on me'". See you there.

Peace, Love, Patience and Fluidity with the Universe - The Last for Now

Dad really declined within that first week. The first 2 or 3 days were good, and then there seemed to be a daily decline. Suddenly he needed a chair in the shower; a cane; a walker; He practically stopped eating, and stubbornly refused to go to bed in his bed (instead of the recliner or the sofa), or to have someone else take over his medications, despite missed doses and the errors he was making.

Our family arrived starting on the Monday of the long weekend (Dad’s brothers and sister and their spouses, and his mom), and it was really nice to have them here. More laughter and food and conversation, we hadn’t seen most of them in years, some of them almost 10 years! I think it has been hard on dad, as he’s up a bit later, doing weird things with his meds because he’s trying to stay awake, and he’s not used to the level of activity. Despite that, I know that he is so so so so glad that they all came to visit and spend time with him and mom. It has been so good for her to have someone to talk to, since she is trying to be strong in front of me, for whatever reason. It’s been so hard on her, and it seems like every time she shows some kind of emotion, she feels like she is being weak, and I can’t seem to change her mind.

I haven’t cried a lot. I’m sad, but there’s work that needs to be done, things that need to be taken care of, and that’s what I came home for, so that’s what I’m doing. Maybe sooner or later it will come crashing down around me, but I feel alright so far… it’s oddly, strangely just happening, and needs to be dealt with. I don’t feel the need to scream and cry, or fight, or do much more than whatever is within my superhuman means to make it better or easier for my parents.

Today is a rough day, for lots of reasons… it’s a rough day for dad, he doesn’t have his strength, he doesn’t want to eat, and he really hasn’t woken up enough to have a real conversation at all yet through the day (and it’s almost bedtime now). I’ve taken over his medications (against his wishes), and put them into the “daily” containers, so we know that if he isn’t doing well it’s not because he’s gotten mixed up and taken too many sleeping pills or something. It’s going to be tough, making the call for when he needs to go into the hospital, but I have limits, I know that. I can’t do it all.

Despite my strength of heart, I know that I can’t be everything, or do everything that’s needed for him to get better. But I can do a lot. I would never be a home care aide, and to anyone out there that is one, I salute you, because I am *surely* not built for it. Like I said, if it weren’t my dad, I wouldn’t be doing any of it. Ultimately, the decision is up to mom, she’s the one that’s going to have to make the call, but when it's time I will walk her into the decision if she needs me to. As far as I believe, as long as he’s able (and willing!) to eat, can sleep, move about the house with his walker, and get to the bathroom on his own, he’s fine to be here in the house. If he can’t do those things we can’t really be enough on our own and he will have to go to the hospital. That's what I say now anyway...

Dad's appointment with the oncologist at the CCI isn’t until the 18th, that’s a week from next Tuesday, forever. I'm beginning to wonder if he wasn't triaged to the top of the list because his cancer is too bad. He is declining so quickly, I don't know if there's really anything that can be done. The doctor here isn't very helpful and he has the bedside manner of a wet sock, so I don't count on him for much. By the 18th I don’t know if Dad will still be home, or if he will be in a hospital somewhere. I’m dreading the day that comes.
Hadn’t saw this one coming. Wasn’t ready. My dad is only 56 years old. He just retired in June, built a campground with my brother, worked hard, dreamed big every day, loved his family.

Sucks.
Shitty.
It really.
Sucks.
It’s really.
Shitty.

I’m praying every day, for peace, for love, for patience, for strength and for fluidity with the universe. Every day. I am grateful for the prayers and well wishes sent in our direction, and every email and letter I get is another good thing I see in the world. As for me, I, continue to pray.

Peace, Love, Patience and Fluidity with the Universe - Part III

Now I have been home for 2 weeks. The flight back on Air Canada was terrible (Tara was right, I should have co-signed her angry letter to the company!), but it passed quickly. I arrived in Vancouver with barely enough time to get through the million-people customs line, and sprint across the airport to the ‘Local’ departures area (stopping only to buy a watch so I could stop looking for airport clocks!). I made the connecting flight easily, and arrived in Edmonton only 25 minutes delayed, which I hear is pretty good these days, for Canadian flights anyway. My “little” brother (who has grown into a pretty exceptional man, and is now married with 3 incredible little ones and a wonderful wife) picked me up at the airport, fidgety and anxious to get back home. We waited awkwardly for my bags to come off the plane, and it seemed to take hours, though my 2 were in the first 10 that slid around. He didn’t handle the news of dad’s illness well, or easily. He and my dad had become best friends in the past few years, doing everything together from quadding and camping to working and renovating, and I can’t even imagine the pain that he was feeling at watching our father get sicker and sicker, but it showed on his face.

The 2 hour drive back in excruciatingly slow seconds which we passed making strange small talk, mini-updates about how things had been at home, how dad looked, how mom was doing, but nothing definite or deep. A quick phone call from mom had us turned around on a 15-minute detour picking up a couple of “ice-caps” from the Ft. Saskatchewan Timmy’s, because they decided they might both enjoy one, and Boyle doesn’t have anything like it. We arrived in Boyle, and of course for me, I felt like I had never left.

Gave Mom a hug when I walked up the steps, she was of course outside the second she heard the truck, and cried when I hugged her, and told me that she was so glad I was home. She said that dad had waited up for our arrival, so I went into the house to say hello. Greg zipped off home as he had to work the next day. I went in the house prepared for the worst when I saw dad, but I was surprised, and not as upset as I thought I might be. He was yellow, and Mom had warned me about the jaundice, so it wasn’t surprising, though I remember thinking “wow, that’s an interesting color, he looks a bit like he should be in some strange movie”! He was thinner, but his voice was normal, he boomed out a hello to me, and stood up to greet me. His eyes, though the yellow color of jaundice, had some spark in them, and he stood up to give me a hug when I came in. After that he was quiet, but that’s nothing new for my dad, I’ve always thought him quiet, at least around me. He was a bit chatty, he stayed up for a couple of hours after my arrival home, watching TV, and making light conversation. He walked around on his own, grabbed a drink or something to eat when he wanted it, and was a *LOT* better than I had ever dared to hope.

For the next 3 or 4 days, he was alright, kinda the same. We talked about his funerary plans, what I would have to help my mom with, what I might have to take care of if she couldn’t handle it. We ate together, watched TV together, hung out together. I was glad to be home, and I found that none of the anger or anxiety that had bugged me for the week previous had come with me once my plane landed in Edmonton.

Within the first week, I started to see the decline. First, about 3 days after arriving, he got the hiccups… they stayed for about 5 or 6 days straight, without ANY kind of a break. He even hiccupped in his sleep!! (but at least he could mostly sleep through them). The doctor said that it was because the cancer was forcing pressure onto his diaphragm, resulting in hiccups. His pain medication was “upped”, changing to Oxycontin because the other one wasn’t working. His sleep medication changed to Clanazopam (whatever the spelling), as he hadn’t been sleeping well in the past couple of days. Then of course his eating slowed down. Suddenly, he really wasn’t much interested in eating, where before he at least tried to eat a little. His referral was in at the Cross Cancer Institute, but when I called them, they told me it would be a week until his referral was reviewed after being triaged, and it would be between 2 and 6 weeks before he would see an oncologist. When she told me, I remember saying “Are you kidding!? Do you mean to say that it might be 2 months before he even sees a specialist!!? The Dr. only gave him 3-6 months! (There was that helpful old anger back again). She tried her best to explain their triage system, which I supposed made sense, and I took a deep breath (or ten). Okay. Not. Helpful. Next.

I drove to the CCI to get some information about the cancer, as we didn’t really know much, but there wasn’t much they could give me that would be as useful as seeing the Dr., so it turned out to be a bit of a waste. Dad’s best friend Brian visited for a day and a half on his way home to his family in Legal from Syncrude; He helped cut some baseboards with the meiter saw (which I now know how to use!) and sat on the balcony visiting with dad, who was almost himself for the day!! I stayed up talking with Brian about how difficult it had been, he had to explain to everyone at work that needed to be told, and had the constant reminder of dad’s absence since they used to work side by side. It was good to have him visit, even for the short while.

Peace, Love, Patience and Fluidity with the Universe - Part II

When I left for Korea, there was a brief conversation about coming home if anything happened to my family. My maternal grandparents had both passed away, my paternal grandfather died before I went back to Korea, and my paternal grandmother is a strong battle-axe (and I mean that as lovingly as can be imagined) of a woman who may live forever. My parents were in relatively good health, and everyone else I knew and loved was pretty much strong and healthy. I never thought it would come to be.

First when I heard the news, I felt annoyed: I had plans, things I wanted to see and do, a course to finish, a couple of trips planned, a certain amount of money I wanted saved before returning home... the whole idea of coming to Korea the 2nd time was to make sure we came home with enough money to set up a house, buy a car, all that jazz. I didn’t want to come home to wiat for news about whether my dad was sick, how sick he might be, and what it all meant. Then, I felt worried: what if I don’t get home quickly and he dies? What if I don’t get home before he can’t communicate anymore, and he doesn’t even know that I came home? The I felt annoyed and angry again, I didn’t want to come home, to give up all of my plans, to come back for a purpose that wasn’t my own, to have so many things once again left undone financially. S and I talked it over, a lot. She told me that if it was her dad, she would probably have been on a plane already. I thought about it a lot. Was she right? Should I leave? Well?... Then, I had enough of torturing myself, and I knew I had to come home.

This all happened in the span of the overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, between the 2 phone calls home... the first call, I was going to be home at the start of November. The next day, I was home on the first flight I could catch. Turned out I was home that Sunday at 5pm before I barely even knew that I had left. I said goodbye to my kids, a wonderful group of 5 and 6 year olds that I loved teaching; I said goodbye to the people I taught with, the 7 other foreigners in the strange world that is Korea… easily the best group of people I have ever worked with; I said an awkward goodbye to the Korean staff I worked with, rushed because of the lack of time, and uneasy because Koreans aren’t great with emotions outside of “happy.” I spent Saturday with S in Seoul, wandering around GyeongBeok Palace for the 2nd day, taking photos with our new cameras, just enjoying hanging out for the day, pretending in my head that I wasn’t having to leave the next day. Waves of anger, anxiety, sadness, worry, relief, nausea and anticipation cycled through me at 6,000rpm, despite the fact that I knew I had made the right decision…

Peace, Love, Patience and Fluidity with the Universe - Part I

I never thought it was going to be easy. Honestly, and I mean this as kindly as it can be said, I don't really like being around sick people. I hate the smell of sickness and death. It is so hard for me to look into eyes every day that have lost their spark for life. I'm not a big fan of doctors, and I don't like hospitals. I hate things that can't be clearly defined in the medical world, of which there are many. I’m tired of trying to help people that don’t really want my help. If he weren't my dad, I wouldn't be here doing what I'm doing.


2 weeks ago tomorrow, I came to Alberta back from Korea after getting news that my Dad was sick... On that Saturday I talked to my Mom and got news that Dad was sick, going in for a CT Scan; The following Tuesday I got word that it was cancer, pancreatic cancer that had spread to cause lesions on his liver, and the doctors said he had 3-6 months to live... Mom said I didn't need to come home, to wait until we knew more about it, how advanced it was, that Dad wasn't doing too bad. I started making my changes of plans that night (I’m a planner, like to have an “outline” of a plan, if not a definite one)... I would finish my contract teaching in Korea a bit early, do the course I had planned in Arizona, go with S to a friend's wedding in Mexico, and then be home in the first week of November. That felt reasonable, unrushed. S and I talked about it, she said she thought maybe I should be going home sooner, I said I'd think about it...

The next day, Wednesday, I talked to Mom again, and I talked to Dad. He didn't sound too bad, a little preoccupied maybe, but not too bad... when I told him I'd be home at the end of October, and not to go anywhere in the meantime, he said "yah, I'll do my best I guess". I hung up the phone feeling sick to my stomach, replaying in my head that I'd just told my dad, who just received news he is dying within the next 6 months, that I'd be home "in a couple of months", certainly leaving the message that I didn’t think it was really important that he was dying... I decided that I had to go home then. I had already talked to my boss about leaving right before the Fall holidays, kinda like the Korean Thanksgiving time, and we had things pretty much arranged, he handled it with only a minimal amount of stammering and chart-drawing (like he is wont to do when he is stressed, or trying to make more time to think). I talked to him again on Thursday morning, told him I had new news that Dad was sicker than they thought, and I needed to go home then, as soon as he could book me a ticket. You can imagine how big his eyes got, and the way he stammered, trying to work out in his head how he was going to make that happen, but he was pretty good about it... everyone at work was really good about it. I felt really bad leaving so quickly, with so little notice, without everything wrapped up, but there wasn't a lot of choice for me. Family comes first. I wouldn’t have said that was the case if you had asked me earlier in the month; I would likely have told you that family comes next after whatever I wanted… it turned out the be something I didn’t realize was true for me, until this happened. Instead, it turns out, Family does come first.

Dreams and Visions

If someone asked you 'what is your dream, or your vision, for your life?", would you have an answer? I assumed that I did, but if I do, I can't seem to spit it out. A person should have dreams for their life by this point, right? Everyone has dreams for their life, don't they? I feel a bit as though I'm just living from week to week and month to month and deciding from that point what to do in the next point, with the dream of having a dream. I've lived life that way for a long time. How do you define dreams? Should they be huge? Should they be small? Should they be attainable, or should they be something that's always just a *little* out of your reach? My dreams have always been shorter-term kinds of things; broad things that I accomplish, and then wonder why I set them as dreams in the first place?

What about goals? If I answer the question 'What are your goals in life?', the answer would sound something like 'to have goals'. I can't describe it in any kind of a straightforward way, no sensible words come to my lips. It's as though I move through my life toward knowingly and acceptingly being what I actually, inwardly, am. I move, very slowly it seems some days, away from who I'm not, from being who I think or thought that I should be, who others thought I should be. And that in itself, who I actually am, remains a daily discovery as well.
My life is a search for self, a path of becoming. Most days, I wish that I had more tangible, measurable goals, like other people I have met. Come on, I'm rigid: I like having goals, things I can measure, lists I can check off; anyone who really knows me would definitely know that! But, at the same time, I know I could never be satisfied with a life where my goal was to get married, have kids, and retire at 50... to have a good job, buy a nice house, buy a nice car, summer at the cottage, and winter in the desert.... Don't those dreams start to feel empty for their dreamers? In our world today we have these crazy quests that result in a stockpile of material goods, and an empty feeling where accomplishment might otherwise roost. I remember having those dreams, thinking that if I could just get the "picture perfect" life, I wouldn't have this feeling inside that something is wrong, that something is missing... thing is, I don't think those tangible goals in life will ever help me fill that space.
My little brother is 26. He's married, has 3 beautiful kids and a beautiful, loving wife; he has a house, a car and a good job. He renovates, enjoys the outdoors, helps and visits with our parents, and likes having a cold beer at the end of his day. And he is happy. He is satisfied with his life. "What more would I want, Shauna?" My parents did things pretty similarly... They had the house up in Ft Mac, the 2 cars (trucks), the 2 kids; they had the summer house at the beach, and the lake lot for camping. They work, and work, and work; they garden, they have family dinners, they watch TV, they enjoy the outdoors, they are comfortable. And they are happy. My mom says that she is happy, as long as her kids are happy. My dad, he doesn't really say anything. When they die, will they feel like their lives were fulfilling? Will they feel like they did what they wanted to do in life, like they became who they were meant to become, that they lived up to the potential of who they could have been?
My goal of becoming, evolving, discovering how to be who I am leaves me with the feeling that I am pursuing a strange end, a self-reflective end which defies itself and is never-ending. My truest self is the one who is in search of herself. How can I ever truly be myself, when the very act of reaching to find myself puts it out of reach? My life needs to have meaning. How do I become the person I was meant to be? My heart's desire is to be a genuine person; to communicate authentically, with an open heart. My life is a search for meaning and integrity, for self-actualization, for becoming who I am, and who I was truly meant to be. The discovery of that piece alone is a daily pursuit... but is it a goal? Is it a dream?
Everyone in life wears masks. I consciously wear the masks of wife, friend, co-worker, foreigner, student, teacher, woman and daughter. Every mask gives me a different energy, a different point of perspective from which to engage with the world. Even alone, I wear my mask of self, being who I think I am, or who I think I should be in that moment. In no moment am I truly unmasked. I can be charming, engaging and charismatic. I can be calm, quiet and introspective. I can be silly, fun and adventurous. I can be serious, directed and disciplined. I can be sexy, alluring and seductive. I can be kind, gentle and friendly. I can be curious, analytical and filled with wonder. I can be sure, composed and confident. I can be loving, honest and supportive. I can be genuine, real and open. I am all these things, these things are all parts of me, yet I am none of them. I can be jealous, petty and whiny. I can be angry, mournful and morose. I can be insecure, uncertain and afraid. I can be fake, dishonest and insincere. I can be closed-minded, rejecting and cold. I can be mean, selfish and harsh. And again, I am all these things, these things are all parts of me, yet I am none of them.

My intention in life is to become on the outside, in every breath and every step, who I am deep within on the inside. I have talked about this before with the people I love. I feel as though I go through my life split: I am both actor and audience. I am always on stage, at the same time watching myself be on stage. It's ironic really. I know a deep desire for unity within, but still I live every day split, standing to one side, watching myself be myself, captive to my own ideas of myself. In everything I do, everything, it as though I am watching from the sideline at the same time that I am interacting with the world. For as long as I can remember in life, I have been constantly consciously observing and evaluating myself, as though I am of two distinct energies. I cannot remember one time in my life where I was fully *inside* myself, where 100% of my energy was devoted to being in that moment. Why is that? Even now as I sit here and type, I review and edit from the perspective outside of myself, that sits and watches what I write and what I do in each second.
Goals... aspirations... desires... ambitions... dreams... visions... for the future, for life, for myself... I still can't define what mine are...

Vagina Monologues and My Moral Outrage

Earlier this month I took part in the Seoul, Korea 2007 production of the Vagina Monologues. We didn't spend a lot of time rehearsing, both foreigners and Koreans participated, and I think things turned out great. The show was a lot of fun, it raised money for a great cause, and it got some important messages to men and women (both foregn and Korean) in Korea. The more involved part that I did was an introduction to the monologue dedicated to the women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanses Government between 1932 and 1945. I was moved to tears the first few times I read it, and barely managed to say my part without tears during the shows. It talked about the fact that the Japanese Government forced somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 women from different countries into sexual slavery, through coersion, deception, and outright abduction. These women were taken from their homes, their families, and they were destroyed. The Japanese Government actually DENIES any part in what happened, and will not acknowledge it as an assault they committed. Last year, they went so far as to erase the written history and documentation from school texts and history books, meaning that their future generations of youths will not even know what happened. The US Congress has introduced a resolution demanding that the Japanese Government acknowledge what happened, apologize to the surviving women (those that are still alive are between 70 and 94 now I think?), and put the damn information/evidence/history back into the school and history books. Now, yesterday, I read that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has flatly said that regardless of what any country does or says (including the US), it will not be apologizing for anything that happened, with an "I didn't do it!" 6-year old reaction in the media.


I know the world isn't a great place. I also know that the world isn't as bad as it could be. I know that sometime soon, things are going to change, for the better or for the worse still yet to be determined... this needs to change, one person at a time. People often think 'that's too bad, but it had nothing to do with me, so I don't really care'. Problem with that way of thinking: everything is part of everything else - all life in completly interconnected with all other life... "We cannot assume responsibilty for ourselves if we cannot see reality as it truly is." (Song of the Deer, 1999). In my absorption of it, ignoring or denying things doesn't make them go away, doesn't make them smaller in your personal life, and I'm guessing it works the same on a universal scale. I just read something this morning that says "We do not come to understand ourselves, others, or the dymanics of Nature by separating, isolating, or dissecting. Rather, we must look at how we affect and are affected by everything in the Universe in a continuous spiral of existence."

I took this excerpt from the V-Day Program after the show... If the world were summarized as a global village of 1000 people...

Statistics about Violence

If the world was a global village of 1000 people:

• Half the population, 500, would be women. There would have been 510 women, but 10 were either never born through gender selective abortion, or died in infancy from neglect.
• In a number of the village’s various communities, girls are considered to be of lesser value than boys. Traditions and masculine inheritance rights reinforce this discrimination against women.
• The women of the village are increasingly at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Three women in the village already have the disease, education about it is patchy and the use of contraception to prevent its spread is limited.
• 167 women in the village have been beaten or coerced into sex and every woman has a one in three chance of being abused in this way. Women of the village risk being killed by their family members, in fact 70% of all murdered women would have been killed by their male partners.
• Only 60 women in the village have ever disclosed the violence they were subjected to and a further 70 of them have only spoken out when interviewed for a survey.
• 100 of the women have been the victims of rape or attempted rape and every woman faces a high risk of this violation, especially if the village is plunged into war. Across the village, violence against women goes unreported, under-investigated and unchecked. _____________________________________________________

This has got to change. Things need to be different in the world. We need to start treating one another with dignity and respect, regardless of whether they are friends or strangers. We have to stop making stupid jokes with friends about 100-year old women being beaten, or other things that are just really not laughable. One day, one person, one thought and one action at a time, things need to change... So for my part, being part of the Vagina Monologues was important to me: educating people about awful things that have happened in the world that have seemingly gone unnoticed; talking to people about changes that need to be made in the future to make things go down a different road, a higher road.

I'm also going to get off this site and write a letter (a letter, not an email), to the office of the Japanese Prime Minister telling him that I think what he is doing is wrong, and that I will not forget, and when I have children, they will know what happened, and so on and so forth. It's nothing huge, but this is how the world gets changed, one person, one attitude, one small thing at a time... I will be aware of what I do, and how I live my life. I will try to remember that things I do and say are all part of something bigger, a bigger world system, a universal system... I will pay attention to what goes on in the world, even if the leaders would like to sweep their national and international woes under the proverbial carpet. I wait for the day when we see more modelling of honor and truth from our politicians and world leaders... and I wait...

People are Happy When They're at War

I'm reading Paulo Coehlo's book "The Zahir". As usual with his books, it's given me many things to think about. Last night, Sadie and I talked about a poem that she had memorized when she was a child, "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream". It talks about the dream where "the world had all agreed to put an end to war". We watched John Denver sing the song, and it was really pretty. He also recited a poem about peace. It got me thinking about war, about peace, and about love. Then I was reading on the way to work, and I read this passage about life and love and war... his wife was working as a war correspondent, and talking about her experience and opinions after living and working in a war zone...


"Paradoxical though it may seem, people are happy when they're at war. For them, the world has meaning... total power of sacrificing themselves for a cause gives meaning to their lives. They are capable of limitless love, because they no longer have anything to lose. A fatally wounded soldier never asks the medical team: 'Please save me!' His last words are usually: 'Tell my wife and my son that I love them'. At the last moment, they speak of love!"

Would the world even know what it would do without war? Why is it that things that are better are often so much more difficult to achieve? That whole, "the best path is rarely the easiest one" adage... War and fighting, in the name of God, in the name of ownership, in the name of duty, in the name of oil, in the name of fear, in the name of family, in the name of scarcity, in the name of love, in the name of sadness, in the name of revenge, in the name of hunger, in the name of exorbitance, in the name of money... so many names, so many faces, so much lost, so little gained...War and fighting have gone on since the beginning of history as I know it. It used to be that battles were fought between tribes so that no group starved... There was a day when tribes and groups battled over basic needs, not over oil and mineral rights. Little things... A young man would sneak out and steal a horse from the other tribe, knowing full well that one would soon be stolen back, in the name of a rights of passage to manhood. Nothing is lost there, is it? A young man establishes himself, the single horse won't cause either tribe paucity, and nothing else is taken. Maybe there's more to it than that, and I don't know about it, but it seems harmless.

I don't understand war. I know that it's a business; young men and women risk their lives and die defending "freedoms" that equate in the end to oil rights; children are stolen away from their families to become soldiers for a cause; people's homes and lives are destroyed; we get our gas $.04 cheaper than we might have otherwise. I know that that's an oversimplification of it all, but boil it all down, and what do you have? A man that I cared for died fighting in Afghanistan last August, more and more go over, and men and women continue to die in the field every day. Not so that we could have food; not so that someone else doesn't come to take over the country; not so that there's enough food and water to keep everyone alive at home; for oil.

Goodbye Little Bunny

My little bunny Noelle died early this morning.
I don't know what happened.
Her kennel is next to my side of the bed; she sleeps in it at night when we're in bed.
I heard her last night, or early this morning, scratching around.
When I woke up this morning, she was dead.
I couldn't close her eyes; did you know that bunnies have the tiniest little eyelids?
I held her in my hand; her little furry self was cold... I was really sad.

I'll try to bury her in the park near the house maybe.
I don't know what to do with her... maybe bring her to the vet's office...
You never know about health with little baby animals, especially off the farm I guess....
She seemed healthy though...

I'm happy we had the couple of weeks we had with her; she was the cutest sweetest little fuzzy I ever held in my hand. I loved watching her lounge on the floor where it was warm, or sitting in the puppy's dish, eating her food. She loved to nuzzle my nose, or tuck in under my chin when I was laying down.

I already miss her, and it's only been a couple of hours. I'll be sad to go home and not see her hopping all around the house and playing with the dog or getting bathed by the cat...

Hrmph... Baby Bunny... Very Sad.
Shitty.