I was in the middle of composing a light-hearted post to bring this blog back to a happy place, when I received shocking and terrible news. The grandmother of a sweet little girl who is in my service group and is also a member of the soccer team I help coach was killed in a car accident yesterday afternoon. It happened not even a mile from our school, where she had just dropped her granddaughter off for soccer practice. The little girls played for an hour to the wail of sirens, not realizing what had happened.

Tell the Bees, by Sarah Lindsay

Folklore tradition dictates that bees must be formally told about significant events in a family’s life such as a birth or a death, lest the bees take offense and abandon their hives. In some parts of rural New England and Appalachia, when there is a death in the family, hives are draped in crepe and food is offered to the bees. Sarah Lindsay captures the dissonance one feels when life marches on, even after a personally earth-shattering event such as the death of a loved one. The bees partake in the family’s pain, but then “fly out tomorrow to look for sweetness” against an immutable landscape.

Wishing that this family may find comfort and sweetness in their memories of a loving grandma.