Anniversaries: From Sad and Macabre Back to Hope

At some point today on Facebook, I wrote the following for my status:

In happy remembrance of friends past and present with birthdays and suchlike today...and in sombre remembrance of strangers I never got to meet.

At least one friend no longer with us, pikachette, had her birthday today. I know of others who also celebrate birthdays, wedding anniversaries and so on on this day.

Save for Chile, which had its own tragedy and madness begin some four decades ago on the same date, the rest of us found such celebrations overshadowed by the deeds of Wrong People eight years ago. We may, perhaps, may never be permitted the needful thing of healing our various wounds resulting from such macabre anniversaries. There are those who have a vested interest in seeing such wounds remain forever festering.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying.

And for the ghost of Leah AKA pikachette, if you're reading these words today?

I hope you've had a good one.

Speaking of starts and stops

I learned from Denis McGrath that Larry Gelbart died today. If you ever saw at least five M*A*S*H episodes in your life, odds are good that at least one of those five will have been co-written by Gelbart.

My comment to Denis?

And so exits a big chunk of my childhood and adolescence. And yet, it's still there, isn't it? Between the DVD sales and the reruns on some channel high up the digital dial, it's still there.

And it helped keep me sane. And it kept me grounded about what to expect as a grown-up. That the bad stuff wasn't going to stop just because I was hitting 18. It would never stop for anyone at all, in fact.

I missed all of that stuff Before M*A*S*H. I know it mattered and matters still to those who can still see it. But you see what's put in front of you. And you work with it as best you can.

Thanks, Mr. Gelbart.