Why?

Re: Saiqa Akhter murdering her two children...I can't get my head around this crime. I believe there really are demons among us now walking the earth and making weak human beings do crazy things. I'm starting to believe the TV show Supernatural is a documentary of sorts. (ok -not really but sheesh!)
I cannot imagine what the father is going through. I can only pray for wisdom to understand and to forgive. Here is the full length 911 Call from Monday July 19th.

Hey YOU! - Up there, in the sky if you are, WTF!? This is why it's easier to believe in demons than a benevolent GOD... Where are you?

In Memoriam...To Carmen

Today is the first anniversary of my sister's passing. That feeling has not passed at all for me. But it's easier to bear. Tomorrow will be the first anniversary of the passing of feeling and functionality in my left hand. I cut it accidentally smashing a coffee cup in anger, despair and grief. These two things are linked forever. I feel like it was a larger-than-life conspiracy, the benumbing of Me. One more part went numb, died, became less somehow. Part of it was in my heart. I didn't have much family left. And now it's less. Part of the loss was my own creativity. I was left-handed. I could sew and craft and crochet and deal cards and write to my sister. In some ways, I think-I know- I did not write her often enough. I felt guilty then and even more so now. Her life was hard. My life was hard. She wanted me to tell her how hard my life was cause it would make her feel better about her own. I selfishly refused, because I couldn't stand it that I couldn't really help her at all and comparing our woes only made me feel worse. This same guilt makes it very hard to speak to her grown daughters. But I don't think they miss me really. They always treated me with respect, but not affection, really. My sister was a good person but not a great mother... I was uncomfortable being viewed as a "better" anything than Carmen. My kids aren't perfect and they certainly aren't where I had hoped they would be by now, but they are ok, safe and still speak to me occasionally, mostly with affection and loyalty. And her children were the same, ever loyal. This taught me that it did not matter who was better at maintaining appearances, but that she spent a large part of our time making me feel uncomfortable on a false and undeserved pedestal. I am good person and do not know yet if I was a great mother. I was a good mom, but not always right, which seem to confuse and anger my grown children when I admitted it and let them in on the secret that I was only, alas!, human, after all.

So I lost my sister and the hand I would have held her close to me with. The hand translates most tactile sensations as pain or nothing. My heart translates the memory of my sister into a selfish barrage of pain alternating with numbness. It has been a year.

My daughter wants commemorate this day somehow. I am at a loss to explain to her, that I am beginning to appreciate the numbness much more than the pain now. But I need to do something for her. How did love and guilt become so closely entwined in us? It must be genetic.
We will have dinner together tonight, Megan and I. Play some cards. Cry a little, probably. Hopefully not argue. I don't want her to feel guilty. I want to help her get some closure. But it's hard for me to open up enough to close anything. I was wallowing in the numb.

Mostly I want to send this message out on the air to my nieces, Lisa Grace and Lauren Elizabeth...I do love you. I do miss your mom, my sister. And I wish you all the best. To my sister, wherever you are, I hope it's peaceful.