For when there just aren’t any words

[Author’s Note: I should probably include a little context here, because otherwise this post doesn’t make the most sense.  For the record, then, if you’re wondering,  I wrote this one the day this awful thing happened.]

I was planning to write something today.  I don’t remember what it was now.  Probably something trivial.  I imagine it would have amused me a little.

But then, well, today happened.  While I’d typically be the first one to argue that humor is often a necessity for coping with the horrors of the world in which we live, mine seems to have left the building at the moment.

I find myself without words, for once.  And I’m not just lacking the right ones.  I’m pretty sure there aren’t any right ones.  At least not for now.

Seemed like a good time to bury myself in something mundane.

Luckily, I got my new laptop bag today that fits both me and my new laptop a lot better than the old one.  So I figured I’d take a little time and quietly, contemplatively, transfer the six years of crap I’ve been lugging around from the old bag to the new.

In the process, I found the envelope of this years’ school pictures of the kids that the Puddinette sent to work with me.  These pictures should have been swapped into my desk frames months ago.  I always kind of forget about things like that.  I’m worse than they Absent Minded Professor.

So that’s what I did today.  And when I’m done here, I’m going to give each of the faces you see above a big, huge hug comprised of such squeezing that they’ll wonder if I’m trying to press them into diamonds.

Which is the real irony, because they’re so much more precious than that already.

All of them are.  So maybe squeeze yours, too, as hard as you can, as soon as you can.

Pud’n