​Suicide has touched my life again.  Like others, I worry I didn't stop long enough to see the sadness behind the bubbles.   The reality of it is none of us can put our lives on hold.  We're all busy trying to make the most of our time here and our choices.  All we can realistically expect from other people is to share a moment, to have a common bond or goal maybe, to share a laugh, share a good cry on occasion.  There are the folks who know they can depend on me, certainly, but that doesn't mean I can eliminate their suffering.  No body holds a key to our happiness.  That job is carved out exclusively for each of us.  Nobody can take us by the hand and make promises for better.  We can only hope it gets better for them.  Because at some point, we have to get back to our journey, our life and they are left to their own thoughts.  Their own feelings.  Their own interpretations of this world and what is has to offer them.  All I can promise people is the sun will rise again.  That's all I got.  We all have gray skies from time to time, but the sky is still blue behind the clouds.  The sun always comes back out.  I can promise pain is temporary.  Struggle is temporary.  I can't promise anything beyond that. 

​IF I had known how much pain the people I love or care about were in, WTF would I do?  I can't make people pull themselves up & out of a bad spot.  Oh, I'll certainly try and I may even loose myself in trying to help them see a brighter future.  But, at some point it's a switch only they can flip.  This life is about personal journeys and what we pull from them. We come in alone, we go out alone.  All those brain signals firing off in our head....that's us.  No one can fix a wire that's misfiring.  Oh, we want to.  We do.  We love, we have compassion and we hurt when people we care about hurt, but we can't make them feel differently.  That's inherently theirs.  

When people don't reach out, I believe it's because they've made a choice for themselves and themselves alone.  I don't feel it's a coward's way out. I never have. I think it takes a lot more courage than most people have in them. I get nervous balancing on the ladder at an awkward angle for fear I'll hurt myself, there's no way I could take myself out.  No way.

Besides. I want to live. I feel a strong resolve that no matter how bad something is, it is TEMPORARY.  The fact the people I care about didn't see their struggles as manageable is something no one could have "fixed".  They keep it going as best they can...until they can't. 

I've never, not for one second, thought suicide was a selfish act.  I think, wow, how brave they were to carry the insurmountable struggle alone for as long as they did.  The crazy thing is I believe in a lot of cases, they ARE thinking of us. They don't want us to be burdened with their woes.  They BELIEVE this was the best choice. They BELIEVE we'll be ok.  When people say suicide is a selfish act, I can't help but feel maybe WE are the selfish ones for making it about what WE lost and what WE wanted for them.  Shouldn't we be more focused on what THEY were going through, that THEY felt so much pain, that THEY were in a struggle we couldn't remove from them?  Yes, I'm heart broken.  But this here, this is about them.  I don't have to make this about me & my grief.  This was their suffocating struggle and all I can think is I want THEM at peace.  I know I can find my peace, I'm not worried about me.  I will mourn, I will honor and yes there are some days I am pulled to my knees.  Grief is hostile and will hit me in the middle of a concert, walking through the farmer's market or at dinner. Grief doesn't care that I'm busy.  For those moments, I give myself permission to feel the pain of loss.  I don't make apologies for my tears.  I don't hold onto any anger or resentment.  Because that to me is a selfish act. 
​All I feel is love for them and a great loss.  Please don't get it twisted.  Even in my heaviest moments of grief, not once do I feel more empathy for those of us left behind
​ than the one's who can't take it anymore. 

​You know what sucks a crusty diabetic toe?  When people talk AT you and act as if they've just did you a huge favor.  "People of the world, heed my gift of words and wisdom I bestow upon you!", as they smugly bark out life tips at us heathens.  

You know when messages sink in?  When we, the audience, are receptive to your words. For that to happen, there has to be a little nuance.  There's some kind of palpable interaction, an exchange or the message is applicable to something we are currently experiencing.   Yapping at people isn't gonna make your message sink in or click.  Have a conversation with us.  Engage with us.  Be in the moment with us.  Resonate with us.  You've got to inspire us in order to influence us.

My cousin took these at Grand Teton National Park, Monday, 8/21/2017 and I had to share!  He did a great job capturing the action.  High five, David!!! 

I can't trust someone who manages to blow up not one, but TWO Toyota engines.  Not with  anything of value to me in this world.  Hell, I wouldn't even trust this person's pot luck dish for a picnic.  Essential to cooking any kind of dish or meal?  KNOW your equipment.  Same for vehicles.  Here's the thing that kills me, guys!  Every vehicle has what I like to call a story board.  The industry calls it a "dashboard cluster", "instrument cluster" or just "cluster".  I call it a story board because it tells you the story of your vehicle's internal organs, if you will.  Your vehicle can not talk to you (not yet, but they are working on that!), so it's up to US to pay attention.  We should NEVER drive a vehicle that's engine is overheating. It's the same way for us...heat stroke kills.  How do we know our vehicle is in danger?  Our vehicle's storyboard gives us clues before the engine locks up and is kaput.  We watch our temperature gauge, we use our sense of smell and since we're driving, I'm assuming we have working eyeballs and can use our vision. It's that simple.  We gotta be aware, not only of our story board, but use our senses to observe anything peculiar (notice the wet spot on the garage floor under our car getting bigger each day?  Better check that!  IF it's a radiator leak, our engine is in imminent danger!) and our smarts (ignoring the problem or turning our radio up to drown out the knocking is not the smartest option).  It's like a baby.  Babies can't talk.  It's up to us to pay attention and observe.  

You know the kick in the pants here?  The same person that blew up TWO Toyotas, virtually the most indestructible vehicles ever made, IS AN EMERGENCY ROOM NURSE.  That's right kids.  The same person who doesn't notice a storyboard screaming at her or blatant sensory cues is charged with noticing OUR symptoms and working to diagnose the cause.  This is the girl who came in with a $550,000 imaging machine and $96,000 monster iPad to the ER to take my friends Xrays while Doctors worked to stabilize him.  Oh you bet I did!  I asked the Dr who will review, analyze and diagnose those images?  Because if it's up to lil Ms Brenda alone, I was about to get all kinds of twisted up in that ER!  I was on the cusp of going FULL DMX.  I ain't afraid to show my arse, my teeth or my claws.  When appropriate.  Of course.    

Ever look in someone's eyes and immediately notice they are dead inside?  There's no sparkle?  You shiver when they look right at you?  Now imagine that it's a child.  Say 8 or 9 years old.  Shouldn't there be some kinda sparkle?!  Some enthusiasm for life?  Especially when they have a good life and have every possible advantage.  What if I tell you not only does this kid have the same dead eyes as Kim Dong Ew, North Korea's sadistic dictator, but I'm actually scared of this child?  This child is the one we'll read about in the news.  The kinda kid who kills their parents because they told them they couldn't have something they wanted.  The worst part is this child started out loving.  The first 3 years of their life, they were a joy.  About the time they could talk and start understanding, I knew they would change.  The mother is twisted, sociopathic and a racist.  The father has never been in her life.  This mother not only passed on this defective DNA & personality deficiencies, but this child will be raised in an entire environment of unacceptable, diabolical belief systems.  I don't mind telling you I pray about it.  I think this kid is capable of major damage in this world.  They could very well have us closing our eyes, wishing for our safe place and repeating over and over as we rock "Sunshine, Dandelions, My Little Ponies".   If I say it enough, we're all safe, right?  Please dear Lord, let me be wrong about this.  Let me one day be ashamed of these thoughts and let this child turn out ok.  I've never wanted to be so wrong about something in my life!  

Since my pledge, I want you to know I have not texted while driving.  I have not used the Panera Bread app while driving.  I have not played Bubble Witch at stop lights.  I feel better and I know I'm in more control behind the wheel.  I'm alert.  Now I notice all the other ding dongs texting and driving.  I am proud I'm not one of them.  I mean.  I could very well still be a ding dong, but I don't text and drive anymore.  Since my post "Dirty Little Secret, Deadly Habit", the family's story that deeply affected me is now national news.  I pray I'm not the only one their story touches or resonates with.  I hope there are other people who decide right now they are committed to change.   

Do you ever see someone's inner ugly and it becomes impossible to see their
outside appearance as anything less than hideous, too? 
When you get a glimpse inside their mind/ their heart and you are stymied how revolting that view of them is?  You know in that moment it will be virtually impossible to ever see them as you once did.  In the days to come you marvel at how you ever saw them as someone you wanted to share space and time with? 
You can NOT even imagine how you saw them as anything less or more
than a twisted evil fraud?
​Am I the only one this has happened to?

You know the craving, right?  The one that hits and you can think of nothing else until you get it.  Chocolate.  Need.  Chocolate.  It's almost bed time.  House locked up, comfy clothes on, the dog and I are all cozy in bed.  We rarely have sweets on hand.  Clearly, I'm not leaving this house so I start to negotiate with myself.  Tomorrow if I get a good work out in, I'll scoop a candy bar on my way to work.   That's when it hits me.  I bought the hubby Reese's Cups last week and I do not recall him eating them.  I race to the pantry.  Please please please please.  My eyes are scanning each shelf at warp speed and then I see it.  The unmistakable orange wrapper peeking out from behind the soup cans.  YES!  I'll eat them and replace them before he gets back from his business trip.  I rip the package open shamelessly, and shove an entire cup in my mouth.  Oh.  Mah.  Goodness.  This is it.  This is EXACTLY what my body needed.  I'm savoring the chocolate and peanut butter as I stand over the island in the kitchen, arms extended full length, hands grasping the counter top on either side, leaning into how good this tastes.  Kinda like how you brace yourself for a roller coaster.  I'm all in and I need a seat belt!  I feel a tickle on my arm.  I swat at the tickle and return to my savor position.   I feel another tickle on my elbow.  Simultaneously, a tickle on my face.  Then my lips.  I haven't even swallowed the chocolate goodness yet when I look down at the package.  It's COVERED in ants.  HUNDREDS!   I look and there's an entire colony in the package.  They're EVERYWHERE.  They're in MY MOUTH!  

​I run as fast as I can to the shower.  Our shower water takes a long time to warm up.  Time is not on my side.  I jump in to the icy stream, spit the entire contents of my mouth onto the shower drain and aim the spicket directly into my mouth.  Every so often I remove the spicket from it's stand and give my body a spray down.  Wanna make sure those ants aren't just moving to a new location somewhere on my body!  I do this for what seems like forever.  I swear I still FEEL them.  I consider washing my hair while I'm in there, but it's late.  I tell myself to gain composure and stop imagining the ants running rampant on my body.  Certainly, I've drowned them all by now.  Right?  Better stay in the shower another 10 min just in case.  I continue flushing my mouth out.  OK.  I should have gotten them all by now.  I think it's safe to come out.  I dry off, I'm WIDE awake, grreeeeeaaaat.  I put the comfy clothes back on, brush my teeth (for the 2nd time tonight) and go back to the scene to access remaining damage.  The other 3 cups cannot be saved.  I pitch them.  I catch the tail end of an ant brigade disappearing into the walls of the island.  I set out ant traps and return to bed.  I tell myself I still have tomorrow.  I'll hit the Majik Market on my way to work.  I decide I'll get a Butterfinger KING SIZE this time and with that thought I lay down with a smile. There's always tomorrow.  Chocolate, you will be mine.

I'm outing myself.  I'm going to be accountable.  It's not just that I text while driving, I am worse than that.  I use the Panera Bread app to order my food while in route to pick it up.  I play Bubble Witch at stop lights.  One of my family members took out a mailbox texting and driving.  They spent an entire Saturday replacing and setting up a new mailbox, then bought the family dinner.  The shock and horror..."what if that had been a kid? ".  We all let that sink in and said never again.  We considered ourselves lucky no one was hurt.  Fast forward to a month later.  That mailbox incident is a faint memory and no longer a reminder it has to stop.  We have 2 family businesses and we often expect to get each other immediately.  We've lost sight of the need to respect there are times we can't be available to one another.  This immediate need to connect the minute one of us has a goal to accomplish is just the gateway drug.  That has led us all to be desensitized to using the phone while driving.  All of us.  Appalling and unacceptable.  Stop light?  Ooo, let me check that text message.  Got an hour commute?  Let me clean out my inbox and return calls.  Time for lunch?  Why wait, let me order now so it's a quick scoop.  We know what we're doing is wrong, but we haven't stopped.  

​My friend is a funeral director and mortician.  She was recently brought to her knees.  She is a calm and collected woman.  She's always poised and composed.  To hear her tailspin so badly and reach out to me, several states away when she has a strong group of confidante's all around her, well.  It's a direct message, I believe.  A message I was meant to receive.  She's opened many body bags, but this day was to be different.  We've talked several times since these particular body bags arrived at her business.  Actually, we've mostly cried together.  Mother, 40, daughter 13, son 10, son's friend 11...all have seen their last sunset.  The other daughter 8 was severely injured and hospitalized, unable to breath on her own.  There was a 7 year old also in the vehicle who fortunately doesn't have any injuries.  Their vehicle ran full speed into the back of a semi truck on an interstate.  Mom was texting and driving.  An entire community is devastated.  I can't get their faces out of my mind.  I can't share specific info with you, out of respect for the discretion of my friend's business.  I sure want to, though.  I want you to see this beautiful family and these precious kids.  I want this story to impact any and every one who texts and drives.  

​I had a family meeting.  My hope is it resonates for all of us.  The mailbox incident didn't stick with us.  This family's story HAS to.  It absolutely HAS to.  We've made our pledge.  It's been a full week today.  I have not touched my phone while driving.  It stays in my purse and anyone who needs me can wait until I'm out from behind the driver's wheel for a response.  No exceptions.   I know it's too early to act like I've made a positive permanent change in my behavior.  It's just something I'm sharing now for accountability and awareness.  When I'm serious about anything, I put it in writing.  So it is said.