A man that does not know how to be angry...

    Henry Ward Beecher once said that "a man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good." I'm clinging to that philosophy right now.
   After looking at silly pictures (see below), listening to Anderson Cooper laugh hysterically, and listening to a couple happy songs, I was feeling quite better. The frustration of the day had begun to dissipate.
   Until, that is, I got an obit for a three-year-old.
   I had talked to his parents earlier on the phone; I expressed my condolences, and thought, Oh, how sad. But what got me - what really got under my skin - was the final line of the obit, right before the address of the funeral home:
   "I love you to the moon and back - and that's a lot!"


   So far today I alone have taken care of 25 obits. There's another girl working who has done just as many. Every single issue of The Star that prints has at least 40-50 obits on a normal day. And Sundays are nuts. Anyway, that's, like, 350ish people that die every week, just in the KC area. Now take that and think about how many people die in the world. It's an easy thing to brush off; I know. I did for years. They're just numbers until I see the stack of papers I have on my desk by the end of the day. Seeing something concrete in front of me makes it real. That's someone's little kid, a boy who didn't get to live life. It's someone's husband, their best friend, the most important person on the planet to them. I think about how I would feel if my mom died, or Dylan, or Ella, or a hundred other people that I love so much - and that's how all those families are feeling right now.
   Now I'm just irritated by everything. Some lady emailed me an obit and asked for an estimate; I told her it was 14 lines, which would cost $79; she replied with, "Is that within the 12-15 line range?"
   No. 14 comes in between 16 and 17. Learn how to count.
   God, give me patience.