Some grand news amidst all the bad news

Some grand news amidst all the bad news

So much bad news surrounds us lately. Most of it beyond bad, in fact. Bad news about the pandemic, about politics, about inexplicable injustices and more batters our brains and hurts our hearts pretty much every single day beyond anything we might have imagined mere months ago.

Yet amidst all that bad news, I have some good news.

Some grand news.

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Grandma's word of the day: Local

Grandma's word of the day: Local

Today's word is... LOCAL

Definition of local (per Dictionary.com):

[loh-kuh l] adjective

1. pertaining to or characterized by place or position in space; spatial.

2. pertaining to, characteristic of, or restricted to a particular place or particular places.

3. pertaining to a city, town, or small district rather than an entire state or country.

4. pertaining to or affecting a particular part or particular parts, as of a physical system or organism.

Local example:

A recent social media post shared...

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A plumber's daughter on shootings, guns, and mental illness

A plumber's daughter on shootings, guns, and mental illness

In the aftermath of the appalling loss of life in Florida on Valentine's Day, social media is once again abuzz with anger, outrage, sadness, stingers, zingers, and some seemingly common-sensical solutions (others very nonsensical and hate-filled) related to gun control, mental illness, and myriad other factors related to yet another WTF situation. 

Once again because nothing changed after the last mass shooting. Or the one before. Or the one before. Or the one before and before and before.

Most of the rhetoric and (justified) rantings seem...

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Grandma's Briefs named top site for grandparents by GRAND Magazine

Great news: Grandma's Briefs has been named one of 11 top websites for grandparents in GRAND Magazine's 2015 Top Blogs/Websites Awards!

grandparent blog

I'm honored and humbled to be included in the same category as many of the grandparent bloggers and websites I've adored for years and hoped to emulate—as a grandparent and as a provider of content highlighting the diversity and vibrancy of today's grandparents.

Congratulations to all my fellow grandparent writers, bloggers, and website publishers named in the article, which you can find here.

Though Grandma's Briefs won the designation, you—the Grandma's Briefs readers—reap the reward by way of a free subscription to GRAND Magazine (a $19.95 value)!

GRAND magazine sept 2015

How to get your free subscription to GRAND Magazine: Simply click on this link to sign up for your free 12-month subscription. I look forward to reading it along with you, hearing your thoughts on the grandparenting features we both will learn from, be inspired by.

A sincere thanks to the editors of GRAND Magazine for the honor and the gift. Even bigger thanks go out to all of you—those who visit my site, read my ramblings, comment on my musings.

Thank you for making Grandma's Briefs part of your grandparent experience!

Compassion trumps fluff plus GRAND Social No. 117 link party

Compassion trumps fluff

I originally planned to kick off today's post with some happy,fluffy stuff. For instance, pointing out that my return to publishing a Saturday Movie Review was quite well received, so much so that even Oprah read my thoughts on THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY... and tweeted to me after reading.

grand social link party

But then compassion...

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Sense, bright sides, and days when neither exist

The ever-so-courageous lion.Two things you may or may not know about me:

1. I like things to makes sense.

2. I like to look on the bright side.

Yesterday I struggled with news that made no sense, provided no bright side.

And I don't like that.

The past few months, my state has seen too many events that make the news, things that make no sense and have no bright side. The Waldo Canyon fire. The Aurora shootings. The heartbreaking story of Jessica Ridgeway.

We humans are born with a courageous spirit, one we're meant to put to good use throughout our lives to accomplish things great and small. I firmly believe that—despite the personally frustrating fact I lack courage far more often than not.

Those unfortunate events of late, though, had nothing to do with courage and everything to do with, well, with things happening for no good reason, making no sense.

Like most folks, I prefer stories of courage, in the news and otherwise. Retellings of how every single day millions of people beat a fatal illness, accomplish an incredible feat, overcome harrowing challenges, come to terms with odds no one ever expected to face, make a difference in personal worlds or the world at large.

The most recent example is the oh so courageous—some might even say crazy—Felix Baumgartner, who leapt from more than 24 miles high in the sky, landing safely to become the first man to reach supersonic speed without traveling in a jet or spacecraft.

What an extraordinary thing to do, and how incredible that he survived unscathed.

But then there are people who do completely average and ordinary things and don't fare so well.

Yesterday provided glaring evidence of such contrast.

Just after reading the newspaper account of Baumgartner's courage and derring do, I heard reports of an automobile accident a few miles from my home. A horrible affair in which two women—one a mother, the other a grandmother, pushing a 14-month-old in a stroller as they walked home after dropping off a total of five kids at school—were plowed down, killed by an SUV as the driver dashed to work or someplace apparently equally important to her.

It makes no sense. One man dares to perform a death-defying act and does exactly that—defies the sensible outcome, which would be death. Yet two women who likely never even considered death a possibility of their actions, that courage would be a requirement of their walking kids and grandkids to school, will never return home or to their loved ones again.

I get that bad things happen to good people all the time. That ordinary people doing ordinary things end up victims of unfortunate, unforseeable circumstances.

All the while a man jumps from far above the earth and falls into fame, good fortune, accolades and a forever place in history.

It makes no sense—the ordinary, the extraordinary, and how things turn out.

I don't begrudge Baumgartner his accomplishment of the truly awesome, incredible feat. I'm amazed he dared to jump from such heights, am inspired by him and his courage.

I just want things to make sense. More importantly, I want there to be a bright side for the families of those ordinary women who dared to cross the street yesterday morning, ending their lives and changing forever the life of the woman driver.

The baby, reportedly pulled by a witness from the mangled stroller, is in ICU but expected to survive. I suppose that could be considered the bright side.

I find it hard to wrap my head around that being a bright side, though, when that baby and a handful of other kiddos are left without a mother, a grandmother.

Perhaps it's at such times that our inherent courage is meant to kick into gear—to help us fearlessly accept that sometimes things simply make no sense, that sometimes there is no bright side.

Thing is, as I mentioned above, I unfortunately lack courage more often than I'd like. Yesterday was one of those days. At least when it came to accepting nonsense, darkness, and the unimaginable heartbreak affecting—yet again—ordinary people doing ordinary things.

photo: stock.xchng/KevinMcG

Today's question:

Where do you find courage, for things large or small?