On the agenda for a city wide review of children who have died in the past month …
4 babies with lives cut short before they reached 3 mos – all from co-sleeping with adults who loved them – all totally preventable deaths.
2 deaths from gunshot wounds – adolescent males making lousy life choices and paying the ultimate price.
1 pre-adolescent suicide – a death which left parents, friends and an entire school community wondering what could have prompted a beautiful, outwardly successful young girl to come home early from school and hang herself from her closet rod, using her favorite scarf.
I left the meeting, as I usually do, aware of the fragility and vulnerability of every person in the room, on the street, in the office, in the hospital etc… and saddened beyond telling about our inability to be there in healthy ways for each other; to make a difference; to create a better way of being.
I'm not surprised that I'm choosing to focus my attention tonight on my vacation next month – a trip away to Iona, a remote island off the coast of Scotland.
Tonight, there's no such thing as too remote; it can’t be secluded enough.
Maybe I won’t come back.
Perhaps I’ll stay in a former hermit’s cell and lose my days in pray and contemplation of natural beauty, removed from the ugliness of the world humans have created; allowing someone else to absorb the emotional body blows that come with being on the frontline.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
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