How does one summarize death in a few words, in a title?

This morning, I woke to, quite possibly, the saddest news I had ever heard. My mother sat down on my bed and told me there had been a plane crash in Russia, and the Polish President, my president, was dead. They had crashed in the trees on the way to commemorate tthe 70th anniversary of the Katyń Massacre, where over 22,000 Polish officers, intellectuals and soldiers were brutally murdered by Soviet secret police. There was a lot of fog, my mom said, and everyone was dead.
My mom had been up since 4am, when she received a text message from my aunt in Poland. In Polish school, we had a mass to honor them. But I'll never forget, on the way to school, we were listening to the radio, my mother and brother and I. And when they mentioned that Wojciech Seweryn, a Pole from Chicago, also perished in the crash, my mother gasped. She appeared so helpless, so shaken, and I hadn't ever seen her like this. What is death to change us this way? Why do we humans grieve, why don't we just allow deaths to pass by like other animals, like the pigeons I see on the roadside? They don't seem to care for the dead ones, crushed under our wheels? They don't even learn from their fallen comrades. I saw one pigeon, alone, in the debris of the roadside, half in the sun. It seemed like it matched the way this day has been so far, yet it kept hope, it was there, alive.
I was speechless nearly the whole day, and although I probably appeared not too shaken, not too bothered, in reality I was. I could hardly hold back tears. I thought, as I looked through the window at the beatiful bright blue sky, this can't be. How can this happen, and the world still remain like this: beautiful, unshaken, glorious? It reminded me how fragile life is, how much like a helpless flower that can be trampled at any time.
I thought about how ironic this tradegy was. It truly is, in a way that is hard to explain.
I was reminded of a similar Saturday, almost exactly 5 years ago. The day Pope John Paul II died. I was too young to truly comprehend what happened, and I didn't feel the sadness I feel now. But that Saturday, too, was a week after Easter. That Saturday was horribly sad.
I know, that in 20, 40, 50 years, I'll be able to remember this day as I remember the day the Pope died, as I remember the day my grandfather died of cancer. For some reason, my grandfather's death doesn't seem as horrible, as cut from the world, as this horrible accident. It was his time to go, he was elderly and sick with cancer. I just wish I could have seen him again before he died. But he lived in Poland, so I couldn't.

Oops... my bad

Actually, it's "Freud." At least I think so.

Anyhoo, onto more recent news. Yesterday, after getting an assignment in my digital photography after-school program to photogrpah your pets(of which I have none, unless you want to count twenty decomposing fishy bodies in a make-shift burial ground that somehow lost its crosses), I went nostalgic and sad and almost cried. Because guess who was the only person there without a pet or without a close friend with a pet? If you guessed a)..... well, if a is me, then yes, you've guessed right. *sigh* So I relucxtantly decided, on a stroke of evil(but confused) genius, to photograph...drumrolll please...... THE STONE DOGGIES!! If they were not slathered in ridiculous Thanksgiving costumes then it just might work. Actually, it will because the stuff isn't on the dogs, its on the little fence. Oops, you're probably confused by now. There's a house at the end of my block with these two stone German Sheperd-like dogs(life-size) that stand(sit, actually) behind a little fence. A fence that is decorated for the holidays. Sometimes the dogs are wearing little bow ties and stuff for different holidays... but I digress. Even if I don't.

In case you don't know, I'm crazy about dogs and REALLY want one. (Visit my dog blog.) In the spring I went insane(ish) and started revolving around dogs. I started making a layout for an essay(which I stopped but now have resumed working on, its about 7 or 8 pages but still far from done), researching shelters and adoptable pets and prices and costs and vets and oh my gosh everything in between. Oh and I've collected nearly 400 bucks. Yep... what a gal'll do for some puppy love. I sold half of my favorite books but got only a measly 15 bucks. Still better than nothing. I came so close to getting a dog this summer... so close, so close. I fell in love with one little mutt, nothing more than a scruffy, plain brown pup with a wildly wagging tail. A dog lacking in a pedigree but with a heart bursting with love. A little girl, so gorgeous, my heart wanted to burst. She sang so loudly, she sang her heart out in that dirty cage in the shelter, peering out from behind the bars, sang for my mommy, but my mommy didn't care, couldn't appreciate any of her. She was perfect... I cried for so long after that. I wanted her so much, a dog to love and teach and play with. That was in June. When I came back to the shelter in July, she was gone. And all of my hopes evaporated, even though I knew that the chances for such an amazing dog to stay at the shelter for over a month were so slim, too slim.

I have to stop writing about her. Right now, I'm trying so hard not to cry again, like I did so many months ago.

All I want is a mutt

All I need...

I don't care about a pedigree or

a curly tail,

all I want is some puppy love,

a little dog to hold.

that is all,

I'm sure a lot of pups will fit my call

but they will be gone

one more thing before I go.....

I WANT A DOG!!!!!!!!!

Wrinkles and elderly people...

Older woman obsess with the wrinkles, trying to paralyze their faces and get rid of the unsightly canyons on their face. I believe that wrinkles are a badge of honor and dignity. They are like a map of your lifelong achievements, your love, and your family. They show that you remember forty years ago, fifty years ago. Of course, I have no wrinkles myself being only twelve but I always smile when I see a wrinkled person hobbling by me. Perhaps it is that they have seen and known compassion and have some to give. They are peaceful, they have seen more troubled times and know the consequences of their actions. Yet they are neglected and forgotten, left in homes without their loved ones, where they can only read, if their sight permit, or muse about days gone by. In America this culture of throwing your parents into this dungeon of sorts is widespread. All of my elderly neighbors are now in retirement homes, save for one family whose children are caring enough to live with them. In Poland, this mania is beginning to catch on but my grandparents have always lived in their respective homes, with my out-of-the-country family to take care of them. I myself could not bear to leave my mother and my father in such a place. My father, the lover of nature, of birds and flowers needs a place to sit amidst the wildnerness, contemplating about life and telling jokes in Polish to my mother. I can only hope that I will live on a farm when I am older, and that my beloved parents will be there with me if they choose to. I myself can't imagine life in a retirement home... there's not much to like about a building where you are mostly alone with nothing to do and no one to talk to. The doctors and nursemaids that occasionally come by are not like your loving child or beaming grandchild. Life is love. Love is family. Love is friends. By yourself you cannot exist. You can only sit in wait of death for there is no one to smile at or no way to hear human words. People left in retirement homes with no family and no friends... what do they have? Or perhaps their family just doesn't want to see their wrinkled face and listen to stories of times gone by...