Around noon today my son Diego let me know that there had been a death on Western Washington University's campus: a kid had died from a fall from a 7th story dorm at 10:30 the night before. We texted about it....

I mean, the comma thing is the English teacher in me, but really, I was wanting him to say, I will not, I promise.
You get it right? The damned feeling that a parent has sending their kid off to school, sending their kid off anywhere? Like: I'm glad you're going out into the world! Godspeed! But please, please, please come home to me. Or I will go insane. Recently I read Faith, Hope, and Carnage by Nick Cave and Seán O'Hagan, and a lot of it was about Cave having lost his son. I feel like it was one of the more important books I've read in my life.
My paternal grandmother buried three children, including my dad, her supposed favorite. I held her hand at his funeral. I had no idea, so self-centered and myopic was my view of the world then, that she was suffering more than me. I had known my dad since I was born and then intermittently; she had grown him in her body and been close to him her whole life.
Diego called me that another kid had died on campus that morning. What?! It was true: Not only had one child died in the lasat 24 hours at Western Wasington; a second had to. One was a suicide; one was a drug overdose.

My heart breaks for those kids and for their parents. In a million pieces. I cannot even imagine. we are preparing for Family Weekend up in Bellingham with Diego. What if.........
I cannot fathom it.
I will say this. My father tried to commit suicide several times. And my husband's uncle, our dear Uncle Mike committed suicide. My dear friend's nephew whom she was just about to go visit (and try to save) in Romania just committed suicide. It's so goddam tragic. This morning I was reading in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying just how important it is to pray / meditate for / think good thoughts about those who have died violent deaths (more on that to come). But my goodness, such a tragedy.
And may I just add that while I've known no one personally to die of Covid, we've had a few family members and dear friends' children die from overdoses. Also so incredibly tragic. I can't ... I can't even imagine.
It could be easy to fall into utter despair upon hearing these stories. One thinks: What can I do? What can one silly little individual do???
This very morning I read this in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and I'll just note that much of the stuff I read here is so specific and beyond my spiritual or logical experience, but that.... I was grateful hearing this this morning, especially upon hearing from Diego:
Those who have suffered violent or sudden death have a particularly urgent need for help. Victims of murder, suicide, accident, or war can easily be trapped by their suffering, anguish, and fear, or may be imprisoned in the acutal experience of death and so may be unable to move on through the process of rebirth...Imagine tremendous rays of light emanating from the buddhas or divine beings, pouring down all their compassion and blessing. Imagine this light streaming down onto the dead person, purifying them totally and freeing them from the confusion and pain of their death, granting them profound, lasting peace. Imagine then, with all your heart and mind, that the dead person dissolves into light and his or her consciousness, healed now and free of all suffering, soars up to merge, indissolubly, and forever, with the wisdom mind of the buddhas.
I mean, it's a good thought.
And at your wit's end with grief--or even, as I am, witnessing, imagining grief--it could not hurt to practice this.
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