X is for...

I think everyone participating in this blog challenge will agree, "X" is the most difficult letter.  I seriously looked in the dictionary to see if any word connected to death.  There was X-Ray, but I don't really want to talk about that.  Heck, I don't even really want to talk about an X over someone's eyes to indicate death.  (Thanks Claire, or was it Jill, who offered that idea up a month ago.)

Okay, but how short would this post be if I just wrote that?  I want to exercise my mad blogging skills now that I've got some people who actually read this damn thing and say nice stuff about it. So, I'm gonna go all weird and stretch that X into a post about something else.

Pick up your cell phone.  That's right.  The one that's glued to your hand, or your hip, or maybe it's lost in the bowels of your over sized purse.  Found it?  Cool. Now look at the dialer.  What letters coincide with WXYZ?  The number...

The number 9 is in probably my least favorite Beatle's song, Revolution 9.  Charles Manson liked this song.  A lot.

It was a movie.

There are three 9's in my anniversary date--9/11/99.  Yes, yes, I know.  Believe me, I know.

And if you look at the first three numbers of my anniversary date, what do you get? 

911!!!

Hello, 911? McDonald’s is Out of McNuggets! (Hear the Actual Audio Here)

Whatever you do, please don't call 911 if McDonald's is out of Chicken McNuggets.  When should you call?

When there is an emergency.  When lives are in danger.  When there is a serious injury or medical condition.  Or when there is a crime in progress.  Do not call to ask how to bake a turkey.  Yes, this can sometimes be an emergency, but that's what google is for. 

Want some advice about how to be a good 911 caller?  Remember, when you are on your cell phone, you need to know where you are calling from. Are you one of those rare people who don't use cell phones?  Guess what?  An inactive cell phone can still call 911. It's a good idea to have a cell phone in your car with a charger, even if you don't have a cell phone provider.

So that's my super stretch X post.  I hope you learned something.  If you liked it, call your friends, call your mom, but whatever you do, don't call 911.

W is for...

WHEN?

As in the big when. (You know.  When you, yes you, are going to die.) I'd bet a dollar that if you are relatively healthy and under forty you haven't given your own personal "when" much thought.  If you're anything like me, you think your when will happen way off in the future, like at the age of ninety-nine-and-a-half.  We've all seen the t-shirt or the card or the saying...

 

But really, how many of us actually do that?  I don't know about you, but if it really was my last day, I would  go do something totally kick ass.  So what is preventing me from donning a superhero outfit and fighting crime  for a day or bungee jumping off a really tall bridge?

Fear.

Yep, fear.  Because what if it really wasn't my last day?  What if I get thrown in the slammer doing something stupid like wearing a superhero costume outside of the Wells Fargo waiting for someone to rob it?  Or for bungee jumping off that really tall bridge and I break my leg and I've got a $5000 deductible on my insurance and no money to pay for the emergency room visit?  Then what?

I'll tell you what.  You'll have fun and you'll have a story to tell.  (Speaking of stories to tell, have you heard of Story Corps? Check it out!) Some of my best experiences have come out of facing a fear.  And if you quiet your mind and think about it for a moment, I know you are afraid of something.  It could be flying, talking to that one person who really makes your heart race or going to the movies alone.  But there's something.  The only way to get over a fear is to go through it.

Okay, okay, maybe your not a total wimp like me.  Maybe you're one of those super brave types who is over forty and has no fear of attending a movie like Twilight by themselves among mostly squealing teenage girls.  

So, what haven't you done that you're dying to do? 

Jump out of a plane?  Run with the bulls?  Cage dive with sharks?  Eat pastries in Paris?  Audition for American Idol?  Whatever it is, write it down, or better yet go here and do it online.

Or share it here.  I love to see what people are dying to do.

I'll start.  I want to jump on Oprah Winfrey's couch.

Okay, now you go.

V is for...

VANISHED

For the letter V, I have invited my friend and Goucher College classmate to write a wee bit about vanishing.  Carrie knows a lot about this subject as she is the author of we is got him (The Overlook Press, 2011), the narrative nonfiction account of the first recorded ransom kidnapping in American history.  Not only is Carrie  a kick butt writer and researcher, she has been a wonderful support person for me.  (Writers sometimes need cheerleaders, and on occasion, Carrie waves the pom-poms for me when I want to throw in the towel.)

So, without further babbling on my part, here's Carrie...

Photo pulled from philly.com

Our collective pulse rises when we hear about a missing child. We are desensitized, many of us, to news of crimes against adults. But word of a missing child – anybody’s child – brings us pain. Why else do we look away from the faces posted on bulletin boards, containers or telephone poles?

When we see the word “Missing” on a flyer, we know that a picture will haunt us if we choose to look. Because a disappearance isn’t a death – it could be, but it might not be. Fiction is full of characters whose disappearances involve pilgrimages and quests for truth and justice. But as much as our culture is obsessed with the intersection of fantasy and reality, we know that sometimes the Dark Lord wins. Fearing the worst, we try our best to believe in fairy godmothers.

Faith in life, however, doesn’t offer the closure that death does. In 2001, a judge gave Stanley Patz that closure when he declared his son Etan, missing since 1979, legally dead. The re-emergence of Etan’s story in the press this week has sparked renewed interest in his family, who live in the same SoHo neighborhood as they did when their little boy disappeared. Eleven years after a judge pronounced Etan Patz legally dead, reporters are asking his parents to comment on new investigative leads. It seems to me that such public interest threatens any closure that the family has found. But that’s really none of my business, is it? Certainly the Patzes are defined by more than Etan’s death and stronger than society’s narrative gives them credit for.

What is my concern is my response to Etan’s legacy, the faces below signs of the “Missing.” If I vanish before their pictures, I am denying them my observations, my prayers, my faith in a closure to their stories.

Thanks Carrie!

Typically it is seven years before a missing person can legally be pronounced dead.  You can read about that here.

Questions?  Comments?  

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