This should be a post about the coming New Year, full of optimistic words, a shedding of the old for the bright shiny new. Look else where for that.

Perhaps it is just me~ the 10 Th of December the death of my son Kelsey, the 13 of April my son, Christopher’s death ~ has only been three years or three thousand? The world around me plummets into darkness; there is only bad news it seems. Death and madness stalk those close to me and those far away.

Our world is drowning in our refuse, and nature is something we go “visit”. Any hope of good is snuffed out as quickly as it arises… people are stupider than ever it seems. Nations are headed by lunatics, who care only for money and power. We buy our leaders here at home as much as they buy the offices they seek. We call each other terrible things, cannot agree on the most simple of ideas, and cannot for a second imagine what the “other” is thinking or feeling. I want to shake off this feeling as a dog does the water clinging to its fur. I do not want to honor my despair; I do not want to feel how I feel. I want to be other than what I am.

However, I cannot escape me, so instead of a shiny new Monday, New Year post~ this is what you, my put upon reader, must be served. In doing so, in honoring the despair I feel for myself, my country, my world, just maybe I can shed it. So Bah Humbug! Grumble, whine and general badmouthing all the way around. Well that helped a little.

Here is what helped a lot. A poll in Michigan asked respondents if they believed Peace on Earth could be achieved. A whopping 33% responded positively, another 49% said no way. That leaves some 18% (forget the margin of error folks this is too important!) out there undecided. Some 18% that could be swayed to join the 33% that are my kin. That would result in a 51% majority that believe Peace is possible. That would make a very Happy New Year indeed. In the words of John Lennon, Imagine.

This is my usual Monday post that will be at sirens but as the subject is all over the T.V. an the net,,here it is a early peek~~~

My local community became national news this week as CNN picked up the local beaver must die story~ and if you do not already know the beaver family has been given a reprieve. Just in time for Christmas. They can continue their beaver doings, though as I write this we do not know if it is to be relocation or tree protection that will make both man and beast happy.

There was another story in “entertainment “ this week, mostly on the back pages of papers or a small link, but a sharp eyed Pitt fan ,I spotted it right off. People love to pooh-pooh “Hollywood” celebrities, but Brad and Angelina Jolie are making that hard do, as are Sean Penn, Dennis Leary, Kirstie Alley, Ellen DeGeneres and New Orleans natives and musicians Harry Connick Jr. and Winston Marsalis. But the Pitt-Jolie duo stand out in their commitment to rebuilding New Orleans, especially the hard hit lower 9 th ward. They have bought a home in the French Quarter; plan to spend the Holidays there with their children. Pitt was born in Oklahoma, raised in Missouri and knows New Orleans from two movies he has made there. In 1990 “Interview with a Vampire” and recently the unreleased “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” hitting theaters in 2008, he became familiar with the city and its people. He says of his commitment:” It’s the right thing to do”.

That commitment? He has pledged to more than 5 million dollars for rebuilding efforts, and launched one project to help the city. Make It Right (www.makeitrightnola.org/) plans on building 150 homes in the 9^th, low cost environmentally friendly homes. He also created Global Green USA ( www.globalgreen.org/), which will help fill the need for affordable housing and rebuilding “smarter”. Presidential candidates laud his efforts, and Pitt hopes this becomes an issue for the 2008 election. “I don’t want it to be used as a whipping boy for past mistakes ,but as a real proving ground for policies set forth, meaning education, health reform, ”he said” If it’s going to work, It’ll work here and this place certainly needs it” . With only 10% of the 9^th’s population returned many are grateful for his help. Valerie Schexnayder, 61, who is not on the list for one of his homes is still grateful” He’s bringing my neighbors home,” she says from her federal trailer resting on her property.

Pitt’s project has hit a bump, one of the first people to receive a house Robert Green, who project green was using as a spokesperson has pleaded guilty to false tax returns attached to a home loan application; he awaits sentencing set for Feb.27^th. Ed Blakely, recovery director for the city, hopes Green’s actions will not harm Make It Rights program, a program that will help families return to their city~ a part that many thought couldn't’t or shouldn’t be rebuilt. Blakely says,” When our residents see people who are important in their own right devoting time, energy and money to the recovery, it makes them hold on.”

Pitt has raised 3.5 million dollars so far.

As we sit gathered tomorrow with our families, warm and safe, perhaps we can spare a moment reflecting on those in our own country who are scattered all over. Spend a moment wishing them the best in this New Year. Spend a moment thanking your God(s) it was not you.

Spend a moment to click this Youtube link to see the amazing clip of Project Pink : http://www.youtube.com/watc...  ( I tried to do this twice,blog fairies, using the url,not the embed but what am I doing wrong??)

Today’s post is short and I hope sweet, sweet with truth and meaning. This is the third “anniversary” of my son, Kelsey’s death and this is all I have in me….

Why we should care?  A race related post on another blog resulted in a heated exchange, as they so often do. The question was asked in relation to “whites” caring about the “plight of the blacks”… if they cared nothing about helping themselves, in the posters view, why should we?

I caught an excellent documentary on Tony Kushner’s, the great American playwright. One of his colleague’s comments sparked this reply.

For a book, a piece of artwork, a film, a play to work, the reader, and the viewer is asked to do one thing~ we must have empathy. We listen to one actor speak to another and must believe and feel for and about the character. The focus of the piece of art requires the same, in a slightly different manner but for art to work it must “move’ us somehow.

In a democracy we must have empathy for the “other” for the concept to work, ~ we must have concern for each and everyone. If one is “in it” only for ones self, there is no true democracy, one must think of the greater good.

        & nbsp;  E Pluribus Unum~~~From Many One

Interestingly, both concepts ~theater and democracy~ come from the same place and time. Eternal twins in time and thought. Still, after these many years, the potential and the promise of both concepts remain only partially explored, and unfulfilled.

There are the happy and content among us, there are those who are angry and hungry. The content must reach out and care. They must never let their plenty turn them complacent. The hungry must reach out and try and never let their anger cause harm.

We are in this together and must never lose sight of that fact or of each other.

Tis the season, for our yearly reflection. On things past and things hoped for. For Peace, Goodwill, Joy and for many the time to reflect on their saviors birth, the miracles of Gods promise. It is the time of cold, dark, the shortest days, a season for going inward, retreat until the hint of spring and resurrection of all things green and of all things spiritual. Now we gather close to kith and kin, close to home and hearth and wait for the sun to re-warm our earth, our bodies and our spirits.

I awoke again, unable to sleep~ so many ghosts around my bed. The dog is ill, may well be with us only for a few more days. I had to rise, felt the need to be near her and sort out my feelings. It is odd both of the dogs came to be with me late in their days, yet I feel connected with them in many ways. I am not sure who is the comforter and the comforted, but here I am on a dark morning quietly beside her. Waiting for another death, another passing.

I was thinking about people, as I often do .In general the kind of people, the ones who look and do, perhaps beyond the obvious, certainly beyond the ordinary. Specifically the ones who surrounded my loved ones as they died. The young drug counselor, who seeing my eldest as he crawled the city streets vainly trying to avoid death, looking for help, looking for~ God? Looked past what many would have thought~”hey he’s just a drunk, druggie” and called 911. To that ambulance crew who rushed to him, tried their very best to save a complete stranger. They too looked past anything and everything and saw only a man needing help, help that came too late, but help that eased his mothers heart. I wrote to the ambulance company to thank them for their help, for what they do with their lives. By the startled responses I got, praise must not be a common reaction. Praise is what they deserve for what must be a heart-wrenching job, clearly one not thanked enough. I often think of the young counselor, after much confusion on the part of the supervisor, who was afraid of my reason for calling, I learned he was quite shaken by the experience, that he not only called but went out into the night to wait by my son till help came. I think of him often with much fondness, for one who cared so much for another human. I hope he soars; I hope his life is a blessed one.

My second son’s death is the hardest to write about, so forgive any disjointedness. The security guard, the first step in the ER triage, waved us on to wait; ignoring my feeble pleas, ~ I can never forget his eyes as they met mine on the way out the door after. I hope he has found peace, I hope he knows I forgive him. I know he realizes something precious was lost that day. I hope he knows each body is amazingly unique, that each who finds him or her self there deserves only the best. It is a high cost to pay, but one that any who works such jobs must pay. To the nurse who came in answer to my screams, to the other nurse who sat me down, holding my hand as they began to try to save him. To the administrator who asked if we would rather wait elsewhere. When I said no, I was going to stay close, the firm voice of another nurse saying, “I wouldn’t go anywhere else, either”~ another mother surely~ her voices echo’s still within me. When they found my other son had died just nine months before in the very same ER, the undercurrent changed, that information spreading as it only can in hospitals. Like wildfire and unspoken. The six or so nurse’s and doctors looked at me in unison and quickly turned back to re-new their efforts. For twenty minutes. To that nurse who when I said ,he is gone isn’t he, just looked at me~ I reassured her I could take and wanted the truth, then she just asked me if I wanted to say goodbye. As they stood around me I told my beloved I cared more for him than life, that he and gotten a bum deal from the get go and how sorry I was. How I loved him. They kept trying. I know what that job can cost those wonderful people, I know what it cost them that day as each of then hugged me, the mothers sobbing. The doctors feeling helpless. Their faces are a blur to me, but I often hope the best for each of them. To do what they do each day, the wondrous moment when a life is saved counter balanced by days such as mine…it takes a special soul to seek out that work. For however hardened one becomes~ make no mistake they must harden themselves to do such work~ a day comes along unbearably real and terrible that makes them question all. They have my undying gratitude, my hope for all that is best.

Each winter season that has passed brings these things back, each time the pain is brought out like some finely etched glass object, to be held in hand admired, awed by, cried over as it reflects it crystalline colors. It is an honor to have such pain, such joy, to have felt these very human emotions .To know breath and the absence of breath. To have loved so deeply and completely. To have achieved some level of peace. In this season, when we reflect on birth, death and resurrection, when we honor the cycle of light and dark, I hope we each see the divine that is all around us. Most importantly I hope we see the divine that is in us~ and its name is love. Blessed Be.