“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us.  Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often that not, the part we have to give is not wanted.  And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us.  But we can still love them-we can love completely without complete understanding.”

A River Runs Through It

Got word from my sister today that her best friend, who was also a friend of mine, had died. She had just turned 40. When you hear news like this a million questions go through your mind. How did it happen? What happened? Was it an accident? Suicide? We want some explanation as to how this happens because it doesn’t make sense to us. Young people aren’t supposed to die, and when they do, we also for a second consider our own mortality. » Read the rest of this entry «

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean-favoured and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good Morning!” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine — we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked and waited for the light,
And went without the meat and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet in his head.

Edwin Arlington Robinson » Read the rest of this entry «