I started writing this post at the end of September, a draft of which has disappeared likely because I failed to save it and my battery ran out one day while I was working. Thoughts on having my oldest move 3500 or so km away to university, my middle starting in person school for the first time, my youngest no longer being so young, husband starting a new job, 25 years of marriage, doing something literally hard in hiking the Grand Canyon, how much my work for money life has shifted and some frankly generic thoughts on how fast September goes by. Some heartfelt thoughts on how I am both so sad at times it guts me and on how I am so happy at times it leaves me breathless.

Since then two weeks have passed, the post was lost, I continue to get up and do the things entrusted to me each day. Since then two weeks have passed and a whole other war where other people’s children are being killed has started.

Especially since becoming a parent I wonder what do we do in times like these? Times that just continue to happen with few breaks in between of suffering, tragedy, hate, anger? How do we respond to our own lives major adjustments while reckoning with the reality that our lives traumas and tragedies don’t involve our children being killed or kidnapped?

Truly I don’t know. We give money, we pray lots of prayers, we love the ones around us well hoping that all of us move out into the world in that place of love able to pass some on instead of passing hurt on. If we can muster it up we call or write our politicians. We use our own sadness to give us a glimpse of compassion for people we don’t know hoping that if enough people do these things that feel frankly futile, it may bring some positive effect. We use our own happiness to give us a glimpse of the world that is possible for everyone if we keep showing up to make it so.