I find myself a political junkie these days. I want facts, from both sides. So, I began digging up places to find non-biased fact checking. The best one I’ve found so far is factcheck.org. If you know of others, drop me a comment and let me know! For now, enjoy this quick review of debunked lies available from factcheck.org!
Archive for September, 2008
I eagerly read, waiting for the chapter written from the dead woman’s perspective –Yes, I peeked ahead to see which characters were given chapters of their own! –I wondered, would it tell the incident from her point of view? Would it be a glimpse of Lily in the afterlife? Would it answer the many questions around her death? It did answer many questions, it also asked a few, but more than that, it put me terrifyingly in touch with a mind that works so much like my own: the constant battle to stay afloat against a seemingly endless tide of sadness, grief and hopelessness. In the chapter, she explains how one day she can be at the top of the world, with energy to spare and the next, deep in the dregs of a hopeless future. When she wondered if things would have been better had she stayed home instead of haring off to New York on her own, it made me realize just how much my family keeps me grounded. Lily’s story is set in the time just before World War I. I found it very easy to relate to the worries of the characters about the war. I did, however, at times have trouble reconciling the setting with the style of the writing. My guess is that the grace of the writing, and the way the author layered so many details into each scene, put me more in mind of an earlier era: perhaps the mid to late 1800′s or perhaps even earlier into the time of the Revolutionary War. The story itself was always true to its established time period though, it was just the visions the writing evoked in my head that placed it at an earlier time. This book earned a prize for the Eric Hoffer Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing in 2008 and it’s easy to see why. The story is told beautifully, and although it deals with a subject of deep sadness and despair, it was easy to walk away from the book with a feeling of hope. This book review has been brought to you by Blog Stop Book Tours. If you’d like to learn more about the author or the book, head on over there. You’ll find an interview with the author, places you can purchase the book, as well as other books that Blog Stop Book Tour bloggers have reviewed. Check out these other blogs if you’re interested in reading other reviews written about this book:Jenn Hollowell: Author and Mixed Media Artist From The Cheap Seats… Reviews, Writings and More One year ago today, I decided it was time to start a blog. I started over on blogger. Then I started another two blogs on wordpress.com before eventually getting my own domain here and using a wordpress installation. Still…a year ago today marks the first post on this blog, which includes a picture of my monkey on the beach. In the post before this one, I commented on how much can change in 8 years, but man…a lot can change in just a YEAR! Happy Anniversary to my blog, in any case. At least it’s a happier anniversary than the one we face on the first of October, next week. When I was twelve, if anyone had told me that I’d be pregnant in 8 more years, I might have laughed at them. Although I did have great aspirations to be a mother some day (there’s a reason friends called me ‘Momma Beth’) I really did not think it would happen in 8 years. Although 8 years then seemed an eternity away, still it seemed like 20 years old was too young for me to consider becoming a parent. 12+8=20 and there I was pregnant with my first child. Luckily, also happily married to a great guy with lots of love and support from both of our families. At the age of 20, if anyone had told me that in 8 more years, I would have had two more children but also have lost one, I would not have believed anything that person had told me. Well, maybe having two more children in 8 years was realistic, but not losing one. The thought of losing a child was inconceivable to me then. I lived in a happy world, with a good life spreading out before me. It was not a life tinged with sadness or tragedy. I had such a blessed life, that I could only think “That can’t happen to me.” At the age of 23, I had my second child. And five weeks later, he stopped breathing. And still the thought that tragedy could strike my family was not one that I felt applied to me. I still had hope that my second child would recover fully from his brush with death and go on to lead a long and fulfilling life. The doctors tried their hardest to put his future into realistic terms for us. The walls of my safe castle were crumbling, my world was no longer full of the bright colors of optimism and joy. Instead, a strong hand had brushed every thing I saw with gray, black and brown. I quickly came to realize my easy, blessed life was changing in horrifying ways. Thinking 8 years ahead then was not an option. It was all I could do to survive, day by day, hour by hour. The future was not mine to dream about. At the age of 25, the question of Sullivan’s future was answered. He died. He had no future in this life, beyond that of our memories. I became intimately aware that “IT” could happen to anyone, anywhere, without rhyme or reason. As the days and months passed after his death, I began to see a future ahead again. Each day that passed painted a new kaleidoscope of colors in front of me. The world still held grays, blacks and browns, but they became balanced by the endless shades of other possibilities. At the age of 25, I had no idea what my future held. But I wanted another child. Eight years ahead seemed far distant still. I’m 31 now. I’m still looking forward into the murky future, trying to resolve the whirling mix of colors into some order that makes sense. I’m still trying to find my own path to the future, while realizing that every day lays a new stone on the path to that future. I don’t know what the next 8 years hold for me or for my family. I hope, I pray, that my two children will continue growing and maturing into the next 8 years. In 8 years, J will be 18 and moving out into the great world beyond, hopefully filled with all the hope and optimism an 18 year old should have. In 8 years, X will be 12 and my hope is that he will still have that boundless energy and curiousity that he was now. But now, looking back 8 years, I see so many twists and turns in the path. It’s hard to believe that almost 8 years ago, I gave birth to my second child…thinking I was giving him into the world to love and nurture to adulthood. It’s hard to believe that six years ago, I said goodbye to that boy. Instead of raising him to adulthood, I watched him soar to the heavens. Sometimes, when I see a picture of my family now, there’s a shadow figure standing there beside us. A boy with curly light brown hair and bright blue eyes lit with the mischief most 8 year old boys seem to share. He’s tall for his age, and strong. He’s there with us, always, even if only in my head. I wonder what he’d be like now, if he had never stopped breathing that cold December day. And then I wonder what he’d be like now, if he had stopped breathing…but then hadn’t died two years later. 8 years…it’s amazing what a difference 8 years can make. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ve read something of our son, Sullivan. The anniversary of his death is looming once more, and the anticipation of it is building. Somehow, the day itself will be anticlimatic, but perhaps that’s as it should be. His death was anticlimatic in many ways. We went through nearly two years of drama during his lifetime. First his near miss SIDS incident, a month in the hospital with him, fighting insurance companies and government agencies trying to get the care he needed, that we needed in order to live. (I’m still frustrated by all of the refusals I heard in that time. Did you know that a pair of people are supposed to be able to care for a medically fragile infant 24/7 while one holds a full time job and the other also has a 2 year old to nurture, without any help whatsoever? The insurance company was KIND ENOUGH to grant us weekly home visits from a nurse to be monitor Sullivan’s health. But no respite care was authorized until we turned to Hospice. Thank goodness for family and friends willing to give of themselves to make our lives bearable.) I find I’m often sad, bitter, even angry about things that happened during Sullivan’s life. The sadness is sort of ever present, although it’s tinged with a gratefulness that I was given nearly two years to know and love Sullivan. But the bitterness, the anger, the rage, they are not balanced by much of anything. They are simply a whirlpool of nasty feelings about the companies and people who did not seem to hold a compassionate place in their hearts. A tiny family of four was struggling to maintain itself on a number of levels and all they saw was a child who was not expected to live and so did not deserve their help. How heartless. Would his life have been different if his care had been different? Did the insurance company or the doctors limit his potential with their beliefs that he would not live? I’m sure I’ll never know. But after all of that fighting for every thing we could provide for him, when it actually came time to say goodbye to him, it felt surprisingly undramatic. It was matter of fact, it was full of grief and mourning, definitely. But it was not wholly unexpected, it was not shocking, although it was surreal. On the day of his death, I was confused. I had no desire to weep and wail as I have heard some people do. I felt more pressure to act the ‘right’ way for others, but yet I had no idea what the ‘right way’ actually was. As I did when the incident first happened, I settled stiffly into a pattern of getting done what needed getting done. And when there was nothing that needed to be done, I wandered aimlessly. I wandered a candle shop for at least an hour, searching for a candle or holder that would adequately honor my son’s memory. The one I found suited the day, with its stained glass autumn leaves and its strong metal trunk. It was a reminder that ever life has seasons and the seasons change. It reminded me that the tree of Sullivan’s life had passed on to the next phase, whatever that may be. I’ve been told, and come to believe, that Sullivan was a very old soul. He had a way about him, a charm that glittered in his bright blue eyes. The charisma he carried could reach out to the hardest of hearts and grab their attention…and often their love. Something in him called out to others, sharing compassion, hope and wisdom. But when I think of those blue eyes, so similar to his father’s and to the little brother he never met, I know I saw more than that. I saw a recognition, a soul-deep knowledge that he was surrounded by love and family. Despite being told that he was cortically blind, it became clear that he could see SOMETHING. And when those eyes stared at me, I knew that something in the vague shape he could likely see, spoke to him of love, comfort and care. Something in that fuzzy shape he might have seen, spoke of MOMMY for him. Despite not being able to hear very well, perhaps some unique tone in my voice conveyed that he meant the world to me. And perhaps, in the end, he did what he could to make sure that his mommy would find the strength to go on after he was gone. His fingers curling into my hair to hug me back, his lunging for me the last time I passed him onto his daddy, the way those eyes watched me the last day….it was so lacking in drama, we had every hope that we’d see him alive again the next day. **** |
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