Death and Taxes

April 15 now so sadly known for both. One a privilege for living in a free county, the other perhaps a price.

Images once unprintable now come with a graphic warnings but are accessible and ingrained in our minds. Perhaps it's important to be able to bear witness to the seemingly unbearable, to remember so many soldiers being blown apart by IEDs so far away from cameras and now all these innocents.

The little boy and his sister and his mother. The rest of the fallen. The horror. The terror. That's why they call it terrorism. The unexpected. The reality that it could and can be anywhere, anytime.

We all are left stunned, sad and for an instant helpless. Then we do what others have done before us and sadly will after us. We lower our flags, raise our awareness, reach out to help (the American Red Cross is a good place to start) and we hold our people closer and longer; and as the government and agencies leave no stone unturned, we leave no words unsaid to those who hold our hearts as we hold theirs and as we, as a nation, hold the victims in our collective embrace and minds and thoughts and prayers.