Newtown On Labor Day

Today is Labor Day and I have the day off from work.  YEAH!!! I hope you do too!

Maybe you are planning to go to a friend's house for a special holiday meal or you are going to cook for your family.  Or maybe you're just hangin' at your own house catching up on personal projects.  Or maybe you're going to go to an afternoon picnic or watch a community parade.

 

In Newtown, Connecticut today, there will be a parade.  A parade of love and community and healing.

 

 

It will be same parade that thousands of residents have watched and marched in since the town first held it's Labor Day parade in 1962.  But this year's parade is different.  There were doubts about going ahead with the parade given the deep tragedy that residents experienced on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary when 20 first graders and six adults were massacred by a lone gunman. (http://crylaughheal.blogspot.com/2012/12/newtown-connecticut.html)

 

Many in Newtown didn't think it was appropriate to hold a Labor Day parade this year when so many in their community are still trying to process their loss and rebuild their lives.

 

It is difficult to know what to do next when a life is lost; especially in Newtown where their losses happened in such brutal and cold-hearted manner.  I have found that in the midst of mourning there comes a point when you experience what I call the push-pull of  the healing process.  You know life is different; that life will never be the same without your loved one, but you also begin to search for a way to move forward with your life.  

 

I think Beth Caldwell, head of the Newtown Parade Committee, explained it best when she told the Associated Press (in the story below) that Newtown, in planning this year's Labor Day parade, wanted to be "respectful of what happened and still offer an avenue of celebration" for the residents. 

Labor Day is traditionally the last weekend of summer, a last hurrah of sorts.  Labor Day is also seen as a time of transition from summer to fall, from vacation to school.

Please read below in the link to an Associated Press story in The Boston Globe about Newtown's touching transition on this Labor Day, as it slowly moves from a terrible tragedy to a new kind of healing that I hope will get stronger with the passage of time.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/2013/08/31/with-parade-newtown-reflects-how-healing/x1O6IICVDovinXuc86W6qO/story.html

Summer Fun

 

 

 

 

When I was a child my mother used to let me and my siblings sit on the front steps of our house after the sun had set and it was nightime.  We had all had our baths and she would let us outside in our pajamas.  What risk takers we were!

 

We loved it because we got to stay up late since there wasn't school and there also was an incredible feeling of freedom and naughtiness.  We would play games and look up at the stars in the night sky and sometimes eat sliced bananas in a bowl with milk.

 

Spontaneous Summer.  Relaxing Summer.  Special Summer.  Healing Summer.

 

I think you get the idea by now that Summer is my favorite season.  This week, I have been noticing as we approach the end of August, that every day, in a small way, the sun is setting earlier.  A new school year has started, preseason football games are airing on national television and the beginning of September and Labor Day is almost upon us.

I don't want the seasons to change. I think of Summer as my BFF and don't want to say good-bye.  I want summer to go on and on and on. . .

 

What do you love about Summer?