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perspective

A month ago a family from my home town lost their only two boys in a fishing/boating accident. It was two weeks before they found the body of the youngest, and another week before they recovered the body of the oldest. The oldest leaves behind a young wife.

The weekend of their memorial service, a classmate of my brother-in-law died in a boating accident, leaving behind a husband and four small children.

Yesterday I spent a few hours with a dear friend whose husband is slowly dying with a brain tumor. They had to make the gut-wrenching decision of a nursing home or hospice. Not exactly how you want to celebrate Easter.

And this morning I was greeted by a Facebook message from a college friend, saying that another classmate who has fought for her only child the last year and a half (the baby was born with half a heart and more than once the doctors wanted to just let her die because of the cost), whose daughter contracted a stomach bug over the weekend and was doing remarkably better, died unexpectedly.

My cousin spent Easter weekend camping, trying to get away from the memories of her 16 yr old daughter's death this time last year, and create some better memories for her remaining children.

Meanwhile my Facebook newsfeed is blowing up with people ranting and raving because their child's school is going to be closed and consolidated into a new building and they weren't given a chance to voice their approval/disapproval of the plan. I know that things that impact your life seem monumental, but in the scheme of life, this seems like such a trivial matter. They're getting a "free education" in a new building. They could be waking up facing a true nightmare of watching a loved one die or not having their child. These people need a reality check.

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