The Portal: Portal-ity Thoughts

I wrote this post a few months ago thinking I would submit it.  I didn't.  Today I found it, read it, started tweaking it, and now I'm not so sure I should post it at all.  Hopefully, it will speak to someone who has lost a child or was disappointed by life. John died overnight.  One moment we were a mostly happy family, and the next morning he was dead.  He was 24 years old, tall, dark and handsome.  He was funny and outgoing, and he genuinely cared about people, He was also an addict.  I hate that term, but I’ll use it here, so you understand.  I would normally refer to it as substance use disorder, or that he died from fentanyl poisoning, but the fact remained that John was very addicted to opioids.  Which turned into a heroin addiction and then to fentanyl poisoning.  The drug of the season.  The mass murderer of our children.   He was in the Army, 3,250 miles away from home, and was ...

September 11 th , 2020.  Let that sink in for a moment.  What comes to mind when you remember that day in 2001?  Living in rural America, we saw it all unfold on television.  People running away, fireman, rescue, and police rushing towards.  Chaos and horror.  Planes crashing and buildings turned to rubble. Disbelief and death – stories of lives lost and terrorism.  We felt, maybe for the first time, vulnerable and attacked.  But we came together.  We stood strong and our patriotism was a beautiful picture of unity and love for the country and for our fellow man.  Stories of heroism, of protection, of last phone calls, of the men and women who gave everything to serve, protect, and save.   2020.  Almost twenty years later, where are we?  CoVid 19, pandemic, shutdowns, masks, an election year, riots, disunity, defunding threats, quarantine and isolation, chaos and again...

Today's blog is brought to you by our daughter, Kaitlin. She wrote it at 2 a.m. Y ou might want to grab a tissue. Ever wonder what it’s like being  in a dead kid’s house? I do.  It’s empty.  There’s an empty seat at the table.  There’s an unused bedroom.  There’s an empty spot on the couch.  There are uneaten snacks in the cupboards.  There’s less laundry to do.  Everywhere you look, something has been affected by the dead kid’s absence.  Usually, there are lots of pictures of the dead kid. Reminders of the memories that were made. The sad thing is that during those times, you have no idea you’re making “memories.” You simply feel that you’re living your daily life in an ordinary way. Then one day, the kid dies and you realize that those ordinary days become some of the most precious times you can hold on to.  You frantically search for videos so you can remember the dead kid’s voice because...