Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Marching for Trayvon Martin ~ Change the Stand Your Ground Laws

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source: @urbansoldier33 in Savannah, GA

This weekend, thousands of people in 100 cities are marching or rallying in memory of Trayvon Martin. And on Friday, President Obama made an impromptu, historic and heartfelt speech about race relations in America.












































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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Mr. Rogers Goes Viral (Again) After Newtown Shooting

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Photo by Jim Judkis

I'm such a huge fan of Mr. Rogers, and I can't imagine what he would think about the way some are shrugging off this massacre of young children as just "business as usual" in America.

But with the magic of video, Mr. Rogers is still around spreading his wisdom. There happens to be a video he made after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy beseeching parents to realize the effect that the news coverage has on the minds and emotions of children. The original doesn't seem to be around on the internet right now, but I bet PBS will put it up soon. For now you can see a clip of it in the video discussion below.

There is also an amazing picture (see above) that was taken for magazine spread and went viral on Facebook just hours after the shooting. It truly captures the innocence of childhood, and gives us hope that not everyone in the world thinks guns are the answer to everything. I would HATE for any child to believe that.

PBS has the story:
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers -- so many caring people in this world."

On Friday, 170 Million for Public Broadcasting posted the image and quote on their Facebook page. Since then, the post has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people and shared more than 90,000 times on Facebook.

The quote was taken from a timely video in which Rogers advises parents on how to help their children during times of tragedy....

. . . Photographer Jim Judkis captured the photo in 1978 at The Children's Institute in Pittsburgh, then known as the Memorial Home for Crippled Children. On Tuesday's NewsHour, Judkis's daughter Maura Judkis talks about the virality of her father's photo.



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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Joe Biden's Moving Speech to Military Families

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The picture above is from Chattanooga National Cemetery, where my father and mother are buried. My father was a WWII disabled veteran who served in France, Italy, Germany and Austria. He had shrapnel in his leg for which he received a purple heart, but he also contracted multiple sclerosis while training for Pacific duty at Fort Lewis. None of that made life easy for him, but if not for the military my parents would never have met.

Daddy was from Tennessee, Mama was from Kansas. They met when my father was stationed at Fort Dix and ended up on a weekend pass in Abilene. My mother, who had just graduated from high school, worked for the telephone company and it just happened to be their turn to serve coffee and doughnuts for the USO. She was a shy introvert and unsure what to do, so someone pointed to my father who was sitting looking very homesick, sunburned and sad. To her surprise, when she offered him some coffee, he looked up and gave her a dazzling smile and started talking like the extrovert he was. My mother told me she had never met anyone like him. When they got married, the Abilene newspaper called him a "hometown boy" - that's how my father could win people over. After the War, they made a life together in Tennessee, with six children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I miss them both every day, but especially on Memorial Day.

My father was a lifelong Roosevelt Democrat, and so was my mother. I once asked my mother if she voted for Eisenhower in the 50s since he was from the same hometown, and she shook her head adamently - "No," she said, "We voted for Adelaide Stevenson, who was a great man." My father never thought Eisenhower did enough for the military veterans who fought under him, and knew it wasn't an accident that suddenly his military medical pension went through as soon as Kennedy was elected into office. Both my parents despised Nixon and Reagan and saw them as power-hungry because they ran for office so many times. I can only imagine what they would say about Mitt Romney! I think they would be amazed that Obama ever got elected, and I know they would be ready to vote for him again in November.

Their influence on my life is immeasurable. They were survivors of the Great Depression, World War II, and years of raising a large family on the shoestring of Veteran's benefits. But they knew what really mattered, and I like to think they would approve of this blog and the message I'm trying to send to the world. Like them, I don't intend to give up on anything I believe in to please anyone else.

This weekend we have an incredible gift - the speech of Vice President Joe Biden to the 18th Annual TAPPS National Military Survivor Seminar. I think this speech is one of the most moving testaments to the American people and to the American military we will ever have, because he made his own grief personal and shared it with the country. God Bless Him! Did I mention that my father's name was also Joe?

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