Mouse in the Library

I forgot how long the mourning process takes. While the timing of Oma's death was sudden, I had been expecting it for at least five years. I knew it was coming. I had time to prepare, to come to terms with it. When she died, it still hurt. It just took a lot less time for me to finish saying goodbye, and to be able to think about her without it hurting. It's different when you don't have time to prepare. It hits you like a knife, and it can take years for the knife to slowly twist its way out of your heart and gut.

Especially when you lost someone, not to death, but to . . . I still don't know what we lost her to, to be honest. When I feel bitter about it, I get snarly about how I never really knew there was a problem until it went boom, because no one fuckin' talked to me, but that's only when I feel particularly bitter about it.

ebonunicorn's son, Nik is up for the weekend. Apparantly, he'd been to an SCA thingie in the past week or two. He met Reana's son, L there. He told Bear-Cub and Puppy that he met L, and that L told him that he'd "broken up" with Bear-Cub, and that he no longer like her or Puppy. He was very insistent about this. Bear-Cub said something to the effect of "he never would've said something like that", and Nik got very set on it. Bear-Cub and Puppy were in tears for over thirty minutes.

I don't know what to think, or what in all of this is truth, and what isn't. I know that I'm not angry or upset at any of the kids involved. When adults fight, all too often it is the children who pay the price.

I'm just so very, very tired of all of this. I will probably never know all of what happened between Drkn, Reana, and Catchild. This means that I will also probably never know what caused the relationship between the three of them to explode so badly. All I know is that we are still mourning. I am still mourning. And my two eldest daughters have more than likely lost people that were very close and important to them.

And every now and then, the knife hits a nerve on its slow, painful way out.

Mikah, I already know how you feel about this post. But this is something that I feel needs to be shared.

Have Kleenex ready.

"And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" has always been a song that has made me cry. This was a beautiful tribute, not just to those who have fallen in Iraq, but to all who have fallen in combat. At least, that was how I saw it.

I support our troops. I just think that we're sending them to die pointlessly in Iraq. Their lives are dear. They have sworn to give those lives for us, and for our country. In return, we have an obligation to keep this the kind of country that they would want to give their lives for.

Yes, people die in combat. Yes, the men and women of the military knew the risks when they signed up. This doesn't give their chain of command the right to waste their lives over our President's need to be the biggest, baddest country on the block.