Blacksheep Speaks

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A short while back, my family watched Alex Haley’s “Roots” again. I love the way it makes you think. Last night, my daughter and I were discussing it, and she put forth the opinion that it was all well and good, but there is no way to learn that much about the past anymore, because there is no word of mouth passing down of family histories anymore. I got thinking about that. While it is true that we aren’t able to go back and discuss it with the pilgrims… there are a lot of things people CAN learn from those around them if they bother to ask. People always carry around a lot of mental luggage with them, and a lot of it is pretty darned interesting. When I was eighteen, I spent my summer working as a nurse’s aide at a local nursing home. While there, I met Sarah. Sarah was one hundred and four years old at the time, and her mind was as sharp as it had ever been. I used to love talking to her. This woman could remember coming to Arkansas in a covered wagon, for goodness sake. She was a walking history book. Yet Sarah herself didn’t see anything out of the ordinary about her experiences. People can surprise you with what they know. You just have to show interest.

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Ask any rational citizen on the street and he will tell you that it is just plain wrong to kill someone over money. Does the amount of money matter? It shouldn’t, yet apparently, to some, money is more valuable than life. Perhaps I am the wrong one to be commenting on this, given that I don’t have a significant amount of money, and never have had. But… I ask you… where is the sense in demanding blood in return for stolen dollars? Take this recent AIG bonus thing. There was actually someone who wrote in and said that these people AND their families should all be strangled with piano wire. What kind of twisted mind comes up with that? Come on, people, it is only money. Obama gives away more of our tax dollars in any given day than these people received. What do YOU care if they have diamonds on their patio furniture covers and you don’t?

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I’m forty one years old, and, in spite of the fact that I have four children of my own and am raising a granddaughter while dealing with Reiter’s Syndrome, I still feel twenty five. So recent events within my family, mainly my sister’s death, but others as well, have really thrown me. For one thing, dumb as it sounds, it never really occurred to me to wonder what would happen to my family if something happened to me. Thinking about this for way too long, I have just about decided that the next time I see one of those no medical exam life insurance commercials on television, I am giving them a call. Having watched my brother in law dealing with bills and expenses related to my sister’s passing, it hit home that absolutely everything we have worked for could be stripped away, should one of us decide to die. It really is a sobering realization.

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