Friday February 16, 2018
Today is a day off school. I’m sitting on my couch in my living room, watching a funeral on tv. It is a live broadcast, coming from St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westerville, Ohio. It is the funeral for two Westerville police officers, killed on duty last Saturday. All of Central Ohio has been affected by this. All of Central Ohio has been mourning the senseless loss of these two officers. All of Central Ohio has been thinking of the families of these two officers and have been mourning for them. It is the End of Watch for Anthony Morelli and Eric Joering. It is a sad day.
I can’t help but think of the event that happened in Florida two days ago. Seventeen people were killed in a mass shooting at a high school. The funeral for one of those victims, a 14-year-old girl, is being held today. All of the United States is mourning for those seventeen human beings, taken from Earth far too soon. It is a sad day.
I can’t help but think of another funeral which took place twenty-nine years ago today. It was the funeral for my younger sister Susan. Susan died of natural causes on February 13 twenty-nine years ago, at age 26. Her death was not from violence, but was tragic in its own right... another life ended too soon. That day was also my mom’s 60th birthday. It was Mom’s 60th birthday, and Mom was having to bury her youngest child that day. It was a sad day.
So much sadness.
So.
Much.
So much sadness. It is inevitable, because with life comes death, and death is inevitable. And death is sad. We have to let go of our loved ones, and that makes us sad. We have to do it. But it is hard.
And life goes on. It does. We search for answers as to why all these bad things happen, and we search for answers as to how to prevent such tragedies from happening, but life goes on. We strive to remember our loved ones with happiness, and we strive to make their deaths mean something by trying to be better people, by doing good for others, by seeing the good in this world, by loving not hating.
Today is a sad day. We are allowed to be sad today. We can remember our loved ones and be sad that they are no longer with us. We miss them. We are sad. Being sad is okay, for today.
Tomorrow we will once again move forward without our loves ones. We will try to move toward light, not darkness. Life will go on. We will go on.
We will.
