Fidget Spinner, Eat Your Heart Out (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by Elephant's Child.     

CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNING:  this story is true and has very sensitive content.

This week's prompts are:

1. alias
2. garden
3. rivers
4. enjoy
5. little 
6. you

 

And/or

1. unusual
2. life
3. walls
4. serenity
5. mapped
6. madness 

His LIFE did not turn out the way he wanted, the way it is supposed to.  MAPPED out one way, there was a turn somewhere, and he ran into WALLS of sadness that did not let up.

The divorce was hard on him, on her, on the boys, which is not UNUSUAL.  The eldest boy had troubles, and that plunged him further into his own morass.  The road to MADNESS is slow and inexorable sometimes.

Treatment helped the son, but by the time he sought the same, it was too LITTLE, too late.  The trickles became streams became RIVERS of tears.

He came to live with his elderly mother, by this time unable to ENJOY anything at all, unable to care.

YOU always wonder afterwards if there could have been something, anything, that could have been done differently, that might have helped.

He had changed so much, it was as if he’d put on another identity as an ALIAS, one that felt nothing but pain and hurt.

Last Wednesday, his best friend in the world died of cancer.  It was the final blow.

He chose outdoors, in the front GARDEN.  Perhaps it gave him comfort somehow that he would go among the flowers.  Then again, he may have not even noticed that much where he was.

When his mother found him, she said it was horrible and yet the peace and SERENITY on his face was like nothing she had seen in the past few years.

Ms. JAI called me yesterday while i was at work.  Her eldest son, the one who has suffered terribly from depression and who lost his best friend to cancer last Wednesday, committed suicide in her front yard on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

She found him, and she had to call the police, and she had to wait, crying and hurt, calling the rest of the family, for two hours before the officers arrived and someone covered him with a sheet.

My heart aches for her, for him, for his boys (especially his eldest, who has been clean and sober for a couple of years now finally).  Her heart, she says, has a hole in it she never could have imagined.

Tonight i am going to the visitation, and i only wish i could do more.

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Today is:

Festival of the Finger Stalls -- Fairy Calendar

International Day for the Abolition of Slavery -- UN

National Day -- Laos; United Arab Emirates

National Fritters Day

National Mutt Day -- US (because mixed breeds need an extra chance) 

Oshiroi Matsuri -- Fukuoka, Japan (Face Paint Festival, to ask for good harvest next year)

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting -- NY, NY, US

Safety Razor Day -- the first disposable razor blades were patented by King Gillette this day in 1901

Special Education Day -- US (anniversary of the first US special education law in 1975)

Special Kids Day -- a day to make sure special needs kids get to visit Santa with whatever accomodations they require    

St. Bibiana's Day (Patron of epileptics, mentally ill people, single laywomen, torture victims; against epilepsy, hangovers, headaches, insanity, mental illness; and, appropriately considering the aforementioned list, Los Angeles, CA)

Walter Plinge Day -- UK (the British equivalent to George Spelvin, a name used to disguise the fact that an actor is playing more than one part in a production, but Walter was based on a real pub ownder who was generous to actors)

Birthdays Today:

Britney Spears, 1981

Nelly Furtado, 1978

Monica Seles, 1973

Lucy Liu, 1968

Randy Gardner, 1958

Dennis Christopher, 1955

Dan Butler, 1954

Stone Phillips, 1954

Cathy Lee Crosby, 1948

T. Coraghessan Boyle, 1948

Gianni Versace, 1946

William Wegman, 1943

Julie Harris, 1925

Maria Callas, 1923

Randolph Hearst, 1915

Charles Ringling, 1863

Georges Seurat, 1859

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Naked Gun(Film), 1988

"Mystery of Edwin Drood"(Musical), 1985

"Imus in the Morning"(Radio), 1961

Dancing Lady(Film), 1933 (first appearance of Fred Astaire)

"The Adventures of Charlie Chan"(Radio), 1932

Model A Ford, 1927 (first sold on this date, for $385)

"Sie Versunkene Glocke/The Sunken Bell"(Hauptmann play), 1896

"Samson et Dalila/Samson and Delilah"(Saint-Saens opera, Op. 47), 1877

"La Favorite/The Favorite"(Donizetti opera), 1840

Today in History:

The University of Leipzig opens, 1409

Dedication of the Touro Synagogue, in Newport, Rhode Island, the first synagogue in what became the United States, 1763

Napoleon defeats the Russians and Austrians at Austerlitz, 1805

The first Savings bank in the US opens, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, 1816

US President James Monroe declares his "Monroe Doctrine", 1823

US President James K. Polk declares it is the "Manifest Destiny" of the US to expand into the West, 1845

Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the US, in NYC, 1867

King Camp Gillette patents the safety razor, 1901

Pu Yi (Hsuan-T'ung) became China's Last Emperor at age 2, 1908

Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A, 1927

A team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, 1942

Riots break out in Jerusalem in response to the approval of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, 1947

The Granma yacht reaches the shores of Cuba's Oriente province and Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement disembark to initiate the Cuban Revolution, 1956

Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, and Umm Al Quwain form the United Arab Emirates, 1971

Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state, 1988

A coalition led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl wins the first free all-German elections since 1932, 1990

The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive, 1999

NASA announces finding an arsenic based life form on Earth, 2010

Taxi service company Uber expands its presence in Latin America by partnering with Carlos Slim's cell phone company America Movil to place the Uber app on mobil phones throughout Mexico, 2014

A trade war truce is agreed upon between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 meeting in Argentina, 2018