Life Is Too Short To Do Anything But Live Your Best Life

By Betty Jean Grant

Betty Jean Grant

As I reflect on last week’s absolutely perfect July 4th weekend in Buffalo, my thoughts, prayers, and condolences go out to the parents and other residents who lost their lives in the massive flooding that happened in Kerr County Texas—other in Texas counties too. I cannot help but think that while this writer and other happy persons were ‘popping our fans’ in the dance lines on Jefferson Ave’s Friday Nite Live, on a beautiful, hot and sun filled day— many terrified citizens, including children were clinging onto tree branches or floating on mattresses or other float able debris, in their efforts to stay alive in the middle of a raging, rain-swollen river that would eventually claim the lives of over 100 victims. While most of us heard about the tragedy later that Friday night when we returned home and listened to the nightly news, I am sure if we had known river flooding earlier that day, the hosts or organizers would have offered a prayer of sup port and sympathy to the families who lost so many children and other family members.

The loss among the children’s population is especially high due to the fact that the river that flooded was next to or near a campsite that had over 750 girls, some of them 8 and 9 years old, who were there for two weeks camping event. My heartful condo lences go out to the victims’ families, the first responders and the communities and to the people of the great state of Texas. As I write this, the experts are trying to figure out what went wrong or what did not go right in this terrible situation. All I know, or believe, is all who could have prevented this loss of so many lives would have done so, without any type of hesitation.

This heartbreaking event should make all of us pause and re-evaluate what are the things and people that are most important to us. How would we live our life if we had a definite date and time of when we transcend to ancestry? Would we use the time that is left on our life calendar to become a more loving and forgiving person or would we use time and resources to amass money we will never spend or buy stuff we can’t take with us, when we leave this earth.

The situation is Texas is heartbreak ing, and this writer knows that when children are involved, our heartstrings become a little tighter. Let us take this opportunity to mourn the needless loss of lives of children everywhere. Those precious children who have been killed, in massive numbers, in the Ukraine, Israel, anywhere in Africa, and the Gaza Strip need their deaths acknowledged as well.



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Puppets of Power: How Emotions and Identity Replace Reason in American Politics