I thought January was bad: lots of patient deaths for Sean, the shooting in Ogden, Judy’s diagnosis of breast cancer, and the weird lack of snow. February is shaping up to be just as bad, if not worse. Josh Powell killed his children and himself on Super Bowl Sunday, someone stole a basset hound from a yard in Harrisville then threw her out of a moving car on Washington Boulevard, a friend lost another friend to liver cancer, a friend’s friend lost her daughter to an intentional overdose, and so on and so on.

So many overdose deaths in the last couple of months in general. How many are intentional? Reading “The Awakening” with my American Lit class made me ponder the notion of suicide–how women do it, how men do it, how many people I know live with addicts and alcoholics who’ve attempted suicide. Some succeed. Fortunately some don’t. These first couple months of the year are hard–apparently January 16th was the saddest day of the year. Will it get better soon?