A Broken Heart - the death of a friend

When I heard that Bret Corbridge had asked to be let go, and was taken off all machines, my heart broke. There have been other trials in my life recently, my children's lives, my siblings' lives, and in the lives of other friends. All of them were pushing me down, creating meltdown types of stress, but this news (and his subsequent death) was the final straw. My heart broke wide open. Samantha, I'm crying with you. A lot of us are. 

 This morning, I got a sense that this life is not really that much, that there is so much more to our lives than this little place and that it's okay when someone dies because they are just continuing their journey. Their work here is actually done. This was in response to my strong feelings about Bret and Tyson dying (because this brought up stuff from when my friend Tyson died, too). 

(There is a link at the bottom of this post where a mutual friend created a go-fund-me to help with Bret's funeral expenses.) 

 I think I was being shown that we put far too much emphasis on losing someone when they go, and not enough on seeing that this place is temporary. So temporary. For all of us. 

In my life, I have found that songs comfort me when I am stressed, depressed scared, angry, terrified, and so on. I get more from singing than from listening, but both can be powerfully healing. 

I am sharing some below. There are two that are not videos and 5 videos that are videos.

 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/bret-corbridge-memorial-fund-for-wonderful-family

Hope for humanity - Reddit post

This is so awesome that I wanted to share a couple of posts from the thread. It reminds me that God sends natural disasters so we have a chance to come together and remember what is actually important. Race, covid, politics forgotten as people pull together. The first quote is from the opening post. The other quote is one of the comments in the thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/pg9vg1/theres_still_hope_for_humankind/

I live in Southeast Louisiana and we just got slammed by one of the most powerful storms to ever make landfall. Not sure how CNN or Fox News is making it out to be since we don’t have any service (currently at a family member’s house away from the damage) but this storm was bad. We’re talking worse than Katrina. A local ship captain clocked wind speeds at 172mph, the strongest ever recorded. Entire parishes wiped off the face of the earth, power outages expected to last for a month, and gas supplies dwindling. New Orleans is an absolute shitshow right now with no end in sight. They dodged a major bullet since the levees held (Corps actually got something right). Anyways I digress, back to the people.

The people in south Louisiana are a special kind of people, resilient in the face of destruction. I live in the suburbs of NOLA and everywhere you look you see utter destruction. Homes gone. Schools gone. Hospitals barely hanging on. But all around those places are people. People with smiles. People who understand. People who want to help. They don’t care what color your skin is, whether or not you’re vaccinated or who you voted for. Chances are these people lost everything just like you and are battling the same battles. Extension cords cross the streets underneath the utility company’s lines so neighbors can share their generators with those who don’t have any. Restaurants opening up just to cook all their food and give it away to those who are hungry. Whole blocks gathering and cooking all their meats so they won’t go to waste.

It’s truly something to experience a life-altering hurricane. It feels like everything has reset. I feel like I’m in a community that cares. No politics are discussed and covid fear is looooong gone. I almost wish it could be like this forever. The time spent with family and friends circled around a lantern drinking and eating is humbling and peaceful. My friendships have gone stronger, my love for my community has grown stronger, and most importantly, my hope for humanity has grown stronger.

The comment (jefftopgun):

Tennessee resident. My inlaws literally lost everything in the flooding. Talking a majority of small items from house found a mile down the creek, coffee table over 10 foot up in the trees. Flood insurance was not possible after the 2010 flood, after insurance paid out, they rezoned the flood plane to include their home, and thus eliminate their ability to renew.

Spent many days down there since. The overwhelming support, even from those who also lost everything, is truly touching. Feast for more than double the people helping pick up dropped off 3 or 4 times for every meal, no matter the objections we gave about having plenty. While its not alot, or enough for a new home, this woman literally has more money than she's ever had at one time in her life from the donations. We're hoping to build her a dream home (modest 2k sq ft bardaminium) on another piece of property they bought last year (out of harms way) and I truly hope we'll be able to trade enough sweat labor and wheel and deal a bit with some of my customers (hardwood lumber and plywood distributor) that she has a free and clear home.

Amazing how beautiful life is, and amazing people can be when the powers out, and no ones on facebook.