Let your parents know you love them

I'm sitting at Logan Airport in Boston, grounded, waiting for thunderstorms to pass. Today my son, Jacob, left for his first day as a sophomore in high school as I was jumping into a taxi. I am on my way to Palm Beach to attend a funeral. My cousin's son died in a accident, drowning when his car skidded into a canal late at night. He was much too young to die. My cousin and his wife are heartbroken.

Every day, we live on borrowed time taken from the fabric of a universe so enormous and complex that we can only begin to wonder at what power could have possibly created such a miracle.

If you have parents living nearby or with you, stop what you are doing and go hug them right away, or call them if they are far from you. No one should ever have to lose a child. Let your parents know that you love them. Time is short.

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
http://thematchstory.com/
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Disabled American Veterans - It takes more than wishes to make a change

I was in New York yesterday, dropping off my son at college and meeting with a few people about The Match. It was unbelievably hot as I walked down 5th Avenue in the brilliant sun, and I turned onto a side street in the high 20s, zigzagging my way across town, trying to find shade.

A wrought iron fence came up to meet me, filled with hundreds of yellow ribbons, each carefully tied and tagged with the name of a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan. Brown, Fischer, Garcia and Georgeopolis, they were all there. Some had been tagged with a note. One read, "Remember when we were young and love was all we knew". Some of the soldiers had died and pictures framed in black were stapled to their ribbons.

Thousands of soldiers have returned home, and many more will follow. Almost all are struggling to survive new battles; some suffer the loss of a hand, or leg or a portion of a face. Others struggle to survive battles invisible to the naked eye, a nightmare terror that comes again and again, or sleepless nights wondering how they will ever find a job to feed their family. It saddens me that we have not yet found peace on our fragile planet. Even more sad is the knowledge that fixing what is wrong seems almost impossible and will take much more than just wishing it could be another way.

If you haven't yet found a way to become engaged, please find a small project or make a modest donation on behalf of of the servicewomen and men who have suffered on our behalf. For more information please visit Disabled American Veterans http://www.dav.org/

Susan Whitman Helfgot

Author, The Match

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