I F-ING hate sympathy cards

Yep, that's right, you heard me.

I F-ING HATE sympathy cards.

I hate what they stand for, I hate that they have to exist, and I hate the big, over feminine cursive and intimate poems with soft words written by someone who has no idea who you are.

Have you heard anyone ever say, 'You know what healed my grief? The pretty cursive, the picture of a sunset, and that poem that took up two of the three tri-folds of the card, well, that did for me.'

No. No one has ever been healed by obnoxious cursive.

I know, I know, it's the thought that counts. It's the words inside from your friends and family that count. But on that note, if it's really the thought that counts, then someone could just give you their thoughts in a paper bag, no?

Anyways, I don't usually have such passionate 'hates' in life. I hate being in tight jeans on a hot day, I hate being separated from my daughter most days (toddler hood has a way of easing this opinion for me :), and I hate to see people (especially the little ones) being abused, neglected or mistreated.

But, that's about it for hate.

I don't like to hate, I don't think many things are worthy of being 'hated'. There are a couple thousand for me that are worth being disliked, but very few are worth being hated.

However, with the amount of sympathy cards I've had to send out lately, I have to say I absolutely hate it.

I hate that one of my friends has to go through this sort of unbearable pain alone, that they have to re-navigate their lives again without their dad, mom, child...I just hate it.

I hate the thought of them feeling so alone, I hate the thought of them feeling that depressed sort of feeling-where they don't know what they are feeling, they just know that it is barely keeping them from sinking to the bottom of the ocean most days.

And I hate that I have to send out sympathy cards to them; I know that to everything there is a beginning and an end, but in my ideal world, no one would die.

No one would have to go through this grief that hangs around for sometimes years, and makes children that lose their parents instantly wiser and mature, having to now be the one that carries the weight of the previous generations.

I was really hoping to wrap this up on a happier note, but sometimes this is life.
Sometimes, things just suck and we have to learn how to maneuver through them.