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A quote: “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” ~~ Norman Cousins
I’ll start with a story …
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Don’t you love this happy face? This captured moment of carefree joy? A time of birthday cake, balloons and boxes wrapped with gaily decorated paper … printed for the sole purpose of gifts.
Amazing, right? We were comfortable enough, free enough, to have effing wrapping paper.
Now it’s gone. “Useless, wasteful”.
Until it was “sin”, too, for celebrating your own child more than any other child.
Then they came for our sons and daughters.
I keep this picture as a reminder of what we lost by being comfortable enough to ignore everything else. God see us through these bitter times.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Cameron says: There is a big mess from the birthday party. Confetti everywhere and I have no clue how that got onto the celling. Time to get the vacuum.
And I don’t care. You know why? The boy in that picture was filthy, scarred and flinched when we hugged him a year ago. He was nine years old and telling me that he wanted to die because the grownups in his life treated him like garbage.
Now he smiles and calls me “dad.” So no; I’m not the least bit bothered at the day or two the cleanup is going to take.
Iwoots says: Twenty-three. Twenty-three this past year. Glad I bought that case of surplus West German ammunition. West Germany no longer existed when my son was born.
Last year was twenty-two.
Before that was twenty-one.
Twenty.
Nineteen.
Eighteen.
Seventeen.
Sixteen.
Fifteen.
Fourteen.
Good thing I found and printed off those lists of who donated to the people who murdered my son, before they took away access.
His birthday is coming up; he would have been twenty-four.
I mail the same form to the surviving family: “Government Approved Euthanasia for the Good of the National Economy”.
If my son has no more birthdays….
Dupin says: “Woo-hoo! Party time! It’s my birthday!”
They’d been playing games, but now his cake sat in front of him, the candle lit. Everyone watched while he blew it out. He ignored the ones who asked what he wished for. If he told them, it wouldn’t come true.
Then came his presents. Joshua gave him a new video game for his Xbox, Ichika, a new Halo Infinite skin. Jamal presented a Steam eCard and Olga a FallOut 5 add-on.
His wish was to see them again once the radiation levels dropped. He savored his cake. It was his last Ding Dong.
Navig8r says: This is the public party with his friends with all the fun and joy that it should be. After supper will be a more solemn, but equally joyful private celebration. My wife and I had considered carefully and at great length. We agreed that this is the year. He will get his first single shot 22 rifle. I am also glad that we still have working film for the old Polaroid so we can have pictures to remember that event too. No matter how careful you are, digital pictures just always seem to find their way on to the internet.
Gregory Horn tried to remember when things had started changing. When he’d first joined the FBI, back during the Energy Wars, he’d thought he’d been doing important work that would help keep the nation safe. There were terrorists to fight, and while using his telepathy to delve into criminal minds was not the most pleasant of tasks, he knew that the alternative was his country turned into a nightmare.
Now he was being sent against his fellow telepaths, even as his own family was being ostracized for having the genes for telepathy. He couldn’t get the image out of his mind, of his daughter in tears as all her so-called friends ghosted her birthday party. A completely different image from the memories of times when birthdays were occasions for joyous celebration.
Fletch says: Nurse Siebert wrung her hands, “Will he survive, Doctor?”
Doctor Bilbar looked at the feverish child. “I don’t know, Nurse. It’s the worst case of Hyper-Sparkle-tosis I’ve ever seen. He’s producing a nearly quart of glitter per hour.”
Nurse Siebert gasped, “Surely he’s not going to die, Doctor.”
“Not if I can help it, and don’t call me Shirley.”
“Can he still live a happy life?”
“That depends; was it happy before? Now, get me the industrial-strength sandpaper. We’re going to have to wipe that smile off his face.”
“Will that cure him?”
“No, but it sure will make me feel better.”
Dupin says: Channeling Leslie Nielsen? 🙂
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