Kim M. – PJ’s & Bathrobes - Blogger 

 

My son loves water. Shower, tub, pool, his frog pond, rain, puddles. The water soothes his soul and calms his body. He really wants a Jacuzzi.

  

 

As a baby, bath time was always an event. He’d sit in his little tub, all smiles, kicking and splashing, water spraying everywhere. After his bath, we would wrap him in a fluffy towel and set him in his crib, where he would smile and enjoy the freedom of being naked. Then it was pajama time. That first year he wore soft, cotton jammies, his little hands peeking out of much too long sleeves.

  

 

He soon graduated to zip-up fleece footed pajamas. Is there anything better than a freshly bathed baby? The smell of his hair, the warmth of his little body, and everything was right in the world. We’d sit on his bedroom floor, reading and acting out his favorite books. We were particularly fond of Guess How Much I Love You, with Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare. I love you this much…..  

 

The pajamas evolved as our little guy grew. Cotton shorties, cotton long johns, and then when waist bands started to drive him nuts, a red union suit, rear flap included. This was so damn cute that it hurt my eyes to look at him.

  

 

It’s funny how you can miss the little pajamas, the miniature hands, smooth skin,  and tiny toes. A few months go by and those fearless footies are screaming through the house at warp speed. And then one day I blinked, and now he’s ten, and we’ve graduated to boxers and t-shirts. Summer and winter. Perhaps a long-sleeve shirt on the coldest of nights, but that’s it.

   So last year on a whim, I bought him a sinfully soft, fleece robe. A young man’s bathrobe, green and navy tartan plaid, wrap-around tie closure. With slippers. Low, blue fleece. No design, no tie, not a cartoon character to be found. I never thought he would wear them.   The slippers go on and off. I find them all over the house. One under the table, another halfway across the room. But the robe. This boy fell in love with his bathrobe. When he is cold, he wants his bathrobe. When he is sick, he wants his bathrobe. He is so adorable, my little guy, that it is painful to look at him because, I know that this too is fleeting.

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Kathy M.  - I Am Making Out of Fear   

I am making out of fear

an urn of resolve to hold my terror

painted with the orange of a Tuscan sun

holding red-hot coals of courage

to fire up resolve.

   

I am making out of partings

a purse with beads of sorrow

stitched to silk with memory’s thread

each heart that slipped away

and left me poor.

   

I am making out of lonliness

a doll of dreams

with body soft

to dance with me under the moon’s eclipse

when even the light of night goes black.

    

I am making out of longing

a quilt of despair to cover my heart

patched with the turquoises and greens

of a Bali beach

to cool the heat of unanswered desire.

   

I am making out of a day at a time

an entire life’s history

neither comedy

nor tragedy, but some sweet cross

between the two

upon which I will hang my soul

for all to read between the lines.

   

Was she selfish, lacking in integrity, narcissistic in her need to be adored?

Yes.

Was she tender, conscious, compassionate in her drive to love her chosen?

Yes, she was that too.

   

A child spins a globe around and stops it, mid-spin, with a finger pointed on a given spot. Making out of momentum, meaning.

  

http://kaleidoscopereflections.wordpress.com/

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Kim M. - Making Out

I remember making out. We were 16. My boyfriend’s blue Bonneville with bench seats, long and wide. I could change the radio station with my feet. An AM radio and steamed windows. He smelled of Brut or British Sterling, a dab of WindSong on my neck. Mouths hinting of spearmint or peppermint, hungry young mouths.

  

           

 We had not yet made love. Would not for some time. It wasn’t that we didn’t think about it. In fact, we barely thought of anything else – at home, in school, during church. But it was a different time. We were not ready. Or I wasn’t ready. And so we discovered love slowly, sensually, deliciously. Hours of lips, and cheeks, and necks, hands exploring, bodies melting. The all consuming thrill of first love.

           

This was before real life took over. Jobs, and stress, and families; the mortgage, and laundry, and we have to get to sleep or we’ll be dragging tomorrow. Before a boy, afraid of bad dreams and darkness and his own bed.

            

Making out when all of life’s possibilities were before us. When each kiss, and lick and murmur could be savored and enjoyed. When the only pressing issue was a curfew or the inquiring town cop.

           

Making out whenever and wherever we could steal away. His kisses lingering as I drift to sleep in my parents’ house. Missing his arms around mine, feeling the imprint of his hand on my back. Waiting for another moment together.

           

Ah, but now. How could we settle for an evening of such innocent bliss? When we barely have a moment alone, barely have time for a quick peck on the lips, rarely holding hands, or dancing, long walks or engaging talks.

           

To miss each other. It’s sad.

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David - Making Out

Making lemonade out of lemons is too optimistic for my taste. I’m not a pessimist, just practical. To make lemonade you need to add sugar, ice and water. You have to make out better than you started. Better put, When life has you puckering up, you have to sweeten the mix with what ever else you got. My generation has learned to reinvent what we already have. In short - steal the best parts, delegate the work, and sell it as your own. That’s “making out sweetly”, as I’d say.

I’ve reached the point in my ideology where I’m now the “older” generation. But, I seem to have fallen in the crack somewhere between Boomers and Gen X’ers. Too proud to say I’m old but too smart to say I’m young. I’ve inherited the packrat mentality of my grandfather, but with the geeky know-how of my nephew to Ebay it all off in a moments notice. Intelligent innovation, as I call it, is the key to my success.

Still, there’s a clear difference between the generation before me and mine. My parents and their parents wouldn’t “make out” as we do; Instead they’d simply “make do.” They were stable and secure. They’d pay cash for everything, put food on the table and said their prayers at night. If you can make do, then you can do without, was their moto. Saving everything was important. “There may not be a tomorrow”, they’d say to me. I didn’t sleep well at night as a child.

Ask my grandad how his day’s been and he’ll say “Oh, I’m making do OK”, as if nothing more was ever coming his way. Scrap material became a shirt, old shirts became rags, rags become gas caps. For him, the half-life of a white cotton undershirt was longer than plutonium. Each thing had a dozen uses as it aged through life. Nothing should be thrown away in their eyes. Nothing but opportunities, I’d think. But for them, security and saving won out over chance and change.

But my generation? We don’t make do. We learned to “make out”. We expect to change jobs, though we know we shouldn’t, we trade in our 2-year-old car for a new one though we shouldn’t, and we even give the wife the occasional once-over; Fatal misjudgements aside, you still acknowledged the worse, invest enough to keep the life insurance paid and yet spend like there was no tomorrow. Hey, my parents convinced me of that. Co-dependency and dysfunctionality is a warranted virtue and skilled talent for survival. Where our parents wouldn’t take hand-outs or ask for loans, we have our loan broker and favourite rich uncle on speed dial. My elders would “Make do” on their own, but with us, to “make out” takes a village.

And so the next generation, I fear the worse. For they seem to be neither making do, nor making out, but just ‘making it up”. But successful innovation takes intelligence. So when their lives become miniaturized and compartmentalized, knowing how anything actually works will discombobulize an innocent new generation. To them, life will only function if you can put it into a formula or program. I suppose they’re a product of my generation, but I won’t take the credit. I’ll give them highlights from my history from Watergate to Bill Gates, and regurgitate how, in my days, I had to ride my suzuki five miles to the mall in the snow, uphill, both ways to buy a pair of pants. And when asked by my grandchildren how I’ve survived in life without virtua-stores, teleports or solar-suits, “No worries” I’ll say with my lemon-puckered face, “I’m making out OK.” _________________________________________________________________

Judy S.- Group 3 - Tiny Murders  

I was in the fifth grade

When the murder happened.

Why I tried to be teacher’s pet with Sister Peter

Is beyond sanity, but after all I was only ten.

   

Raising my hand gingerly

Hoping not to look too eager for attention

The message was received.

Sister Peter knew what my hand in the air meant.

I had finished my classwork

And was requesting the fulfillment of her promise.

  

I was allowed to leave my desk and

Clean the blackboards and dust the room.

 Peacefully perched on top of the Victrola

Sat the royally dressed Infant of Prague.  

In spite of being scrupulously careful

The statue of the Child Jesus

Dressed in a red and gold cape and a jeweled crown

Fell to the floor, and broke his neck.

As his head rolled away from his body

I knew I had committed murder.

  

Just thinking about taking it home for my Daddy to fix

Brought Sister Peter to my side.

“Are you trying to hide what you’ve done?

Being caught and accused murdered my fragile ego.

“ Oh , Sister Peter, my Daddy can fix it;

I know he can.”

Hurriedly dragging myself home that night

I stood waiting at the door for Daddy to arrive,

To present the murder evidence before my hero.

Confident that he would come to the rescue.

    “I can’t fix it.”

My heartbeat pounded, my ears deafened.

“But dad, you have to.”

“I can’t fix it.”

  

A double murder.

“How could he let me down?”

I knew I’d be the one beheaded next.

At only ten years-old

I hadn’t known that Dad was a talker

Not a fixer, and never had been.

Fear of facing my executer

Outweighed the fear of hiding.

Cradled in my arms,

I carried the dead Infant of Prague,

And tearfully presented him to Sister Peter,

Confessing the truth.

“I was wrong. My Daddy can’t fix it.”

“Well, I don’t want it,”

She screeched in my face.

That night I wrapped the Child Jesus

In a plastic bread bag coffin

And buried him in my dresser drawer.

 Beneath my neatly folded clothes.

   

When cleaning my bedroom and packing

My things just before my wedding day,

 There lay before me the plastic bagged beheaded Infant. 

My ten year murder sentence was fulfilled. 

The broken statue went into the trash.

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Marcella Brown - Tiny Murders - Breasts Can Speak

 

you never told me

I could speak up just for me

and my better twin

so now is the time to try

with a voice to speak my truth…

bared and brazen we stand alert

sticking out for all to see

my sister breast and me…

we are up front and personal

we are so soft and sensual

we are at risk and vulnerable

to those rude and bad outlaw

בtiny murderers, cells at work

destroying all our beauty’s worth…

 

why be under mass attack?

by invisible invaders,

gargoyles and crusaders

slaying all within their path,

lopping this and chopping that…

where is the fairness in becoming flat?

it’s armor that we need

for our bodies and minds

to cover and protect our kind…

squads of spirit soldiers

sweeping across the land

against the onslaught of hurtful cells

 marching on to beat this band…

 

this band of beauty

this band of innocence

this band where babies drink

this sacred zone

to us and us alone…

 

we give ourselves away

to pleasure and to feed…

why should we give again

to those rude and bad outlaws

and to their insatiable greed?

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Kim :

I look at my son, a fourth grader, and feel like he’s disappearing. Too much pressure and not a moment of unstructured time. I suppose that I am ancient among these young mothers whose children are destined for Harvard, but really, must we steal away their childhoods to compete in the global market?

     I sat in the same school that my son now attends. Except. We spent first through fifth grade in one school. Our kids attend three schools by fifth grade. Except. We went outdoors for two recesses and a before-school romp. These kids receive twenty minutes of recess a day, when it is not too cold, windy, snowy, or damp, and if they complete their daily work. They are corralled inside the building each morning to begin their morning work, before the teacher enters the classroom or the morning bell rings out.

 

Gone are the impromptu games of softball on a lovely spring day. Gone are the outdoor science walks. Gone are the days when children were given adequate time to master new skills and concepts.

I admit that my son is a challenging child. Active, impulsive, strong-willed, but one could always say he was a happy child. Gleeful. Now he is angry. He has become increasing unhappy each year since first grade. I’m told that this is normal for a kid like him. But my gut tells me that elementary school shouldn’t be so difficult.

Book reports are no longer an essay describing a much-loved book, but rather a family project. My favorite? The tri-fold travel brochure.

What with the never-ending mastery tests and mastery test practice exams, test reviews that rival a college syllabus, volumes of curriculum material they must digest at warp speed, is it any wonder some kids snap?

Are they smarter than we were. Probably. Happier? Definitely not. I have a friend whose nine-year-old son started making frequent trips to the bathroom as mental health breaks.

It reminds me of a conversation at my high school reunion. I sat chatting with an old friend and her husband, an okay but somewhat pretentious guy. He prattled on about how he had cleverly managed his government career to retire by 50, only to return as a highly paid private consultant. Their brilliant daughter, was no doubt headed to an ivy-league college, and the teenage son, a bit of a wanderer but destined to make his first million by 20. The husband said this, it seemed, to justify his son not taking a conservatively appropriate path. So I asked him, “Yes, but will he be happy?” His wife winced.

At a recent school meeting, they asked what I want. I said, “I want my son back.” These kids need a childhood. The bare feet in the grass, sports for the fun of it, lazy Sunday afternoons, empty backpack kind of childhood. Throw out the homework journals, get rid of the incessant assessments, read a book for fun, play a game of kickball, and leave the kids alone.

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Tiny Murder - Barbara

I do not cry out after my husband says he wouldn’t trust me to pick out a tie.And a week later, I say nothing returning a gift to Brooks Brothers, when he says, “can you pick me up a tie while you’re in there?” as if he didn’t recently tell me that I couldn’t.  A gift to me, I should replace, with a tie for him?  A tie he thinks I should choose, maybe something radical in a non-homogenized lavendar instead of navy with a half-inch burgundy stripe. Why don’t I say, “but I thought you said I couldn’t pick a decent tie?”I must stand up and speak, but I don’t.  I say nothing. My mother (from her grave) is screaming bloody murder that this is not the child she raised, while my father (cremated against the rules of the entire Jewish religion, such a radical he was) starts up with those sounds men make when they spent decades being interrupted, their thoughts run down by the 18-wheelers called their wives.  Not better, not worse, just louder with more force.  The mewing he makes might be translated to mean, “if this is how she wants to handle it, who are we to argue here, maybe she’ll divorce him yet, get her just desserts, community property, and don’t forget that other account he has with Fidelity.” But my mother wants to know, “why can’t she speak?  What’s the matter with her?  I read her Emma Goldman.  I dressed her in red every day.  I taught her to haggle.”“Not everyone,” my father gets a word in, “wants to be like you.”“I was good enough for you to marry,” she reminds him.This will go on all night, and they’ve been dead over twenty years, divorced over thirty.  I do not want to get divorced.  I do not want to be my parents.  I let my husband criticize me, and I pray for him.  I pray he’ll die one day of a coronary, a massive stroke or a drunken driver, and I will be a widow, with no need to pick out ties.  I will be a widow, blameless in black._______________________________________________________________ Tiny Murders  by David VonderBurg

With such trickery, time often taunts us, when all our hopes often yet rely on that very measure of life. When nothing more can be done, we languishly implore Time to help, thinking some magic could yet be performed. Isn’t it “Time heals all wounds?” So, we wait: to make the pain disappear, to make the hurt go away, to do something.

I didn’t buy a ticket that night, but at 2am, my restful sleep after a normal day suddenly turned into my watching a performance of EMT’s, doctors and surgeons in a ballet of nightmares for my son that would never end.

Then Time began his act with a fervor of parlor tricks and sleight of hand as I watched the clock. His long sweeping hand created a diversion while hours escaped through a trap door. Again and again, Time ticked away his tricks like tiny murders on my son’s life. But, this wasn’t an illusion. Nothing was happening as it should. The surgeons’ swords pricked my son in desperation to find the next cause of bleeding, as Time threw another dagger. My son lay there, helpless as if shackled and immersed under water and challenged to escape. And Time ticked away another slice. I felt duped and angry to just watch the clock, and began wondering why Death holds his grip so tightly on my son, yet spins the hands of time so loosely as if a roulette wheel, not knowing which second will be the last befallen bet.

At moments, there was some spark of hope as the surgeon forced a solemn smile to tell me my son is stable. Then, a puff of smoke, a flip of the wrist, and I see a surge of doctors hasten back to the O.R. Though I never left his side afterwards, no longer could I feel my son would survive. Hope and despair were merely two halves of the same body now, severed only by the thin blade of Time.

And for Time’s last performance he pulled open the curtain to an empty box: dark, deep and unhallowed. As I gazed in anguish, he led my son into the voided case and shut the curtain. Hours passed as if seconds. Seconds as if hours.

As I felt my son’s hand loosen from around my fingers, I recalled the first day he was born. Such magic it was then. The bright lights, the smack on the bottom, and then such a cry; Oh, such a cry: From him, of fear of course, but from me, of joy. It was a premiere performance I’ll never forget. From then, through 14 years, I saw each day with my son an open door to the next one of dreams and opportunities, passing down my heart and soul to his; but never had I seen Time lurking nearby with lock and key.

But this time, oh yes, I saw Time very clearly: standing on stage with a mortifying grin, hoary sideburns and blackened cape. Every detail brazenly glaring back at me. So simple his figure. Plain. No color. Just black and white. And with a pallored flat face and long thin hand he briskly pulled back open the curtain, but with no flare, no finesse, no magic wand. And there, I saw nothing. Just…nothing. Then Time stood there… silent… still…watching me as I turned away.

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Tiny Murders: Patricia

Most of us commit them everyday. For example, a harsh word to a person who comes to us, maybe in need of a little comfort and instead we spring at them because we are too busy to listen, but not to busy  to judge, or just to self absorbed to take the time out for another person. Sometimes our first thought may be that we think we have to perform or fix it and we don’t want that at all. Oh no! they want me to do something!!!!  They might just want us to be there, to listen,  listen without judgement or tone. Just a quiet loving voice that they can feel some comfort in. I just received a phone call from my grandson that he had lost his job.  He was hysterical, his girlfriend was throwing up from a stomach virus in the background and he called in to work to see if he could stay home to take care of her. His boss had told him to just come and pick up his check. He had lost his last job due to time off because of the tragic death of his best friend. He had so many mixed feelings going on, his sick girlfriend, his rent, his feelings of his own self worthy ness.  He called someone before he called me and got a lot of judgement and a litany of their own problems and he felt worse than he felt before he called them. Sometimes it’s just enough for us to just be there, listen in silence, without judgement or tone……….just love.

 

We commit tiny murders by not pulling back a little on the gas peddle on the highway  when a car comes along and they are trying to change lanes and move into ours. How about when they are trying to enter from a ramp and the first thought is to speed up.   How many times do we step on the gas a little and make it impossible  for them to enter. I know I am not totally conscious of making it harder for them but I also know that I do and really not sure why.

 

Every time that I commit one of these ‘venial sins’ I promise  myself that I will never do this again and then, there I am doing it again. Why!    Power?    Control?   I don’t know………..

 

We commit a tiny murder when we see injustice happening and we do nothing about it. Everyday on the news there are reports about people who are hurt by other peoples actions.  Mistakes caused by so called higher authorities such as judges, police, coaches, people that think they are above the law. Damage caused by drunk drivers, parents who hurt their children, teachers who take liberties with their students without a thought about consequences .  Lies spilled out by government officials who are put in office to nurture and protect the people and instead, lust and greed are there justification for their actions and replace all the good intentions back when they were innocent.  How about those that are forced out of their homes because of foreclosure or fires and seem to have nowhere to turn. I remember well when my house burned down, or is it up?  I could never figure out the right terminology, but I can still feel the loss and desperation.  I am so grateful for the people who came forward with even the tiniest of help. Just to know that someone was out there to lift me up, put pj’s on my body when I didn’t even have socks, help with my dog who also had been up rooted.  What a great feeling, when I found out some people really cared and reached out even the smallest of gestures. There are no words to express how much they were appreciated. 

Where and when do we reach out and what are our obligations to do so? When do we practice what we preach and when do we know what is the next right thing to do? Is it when our gut feels a little uncomfortable when we first know about what is going on,or is it for tomorrow?  Does tomorrow ever come or are we just committing another tiny murder by not doing anything, by thinking that maybe someone else will do it?…………..Is there an answer? I don’t know but by writing this assignment, I know I will never look at opportunities to be kinder the same way again…………

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Tiny Murders: by Kathy MacDonald            

“Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.” she says, her legs, in pink sweater tights, dangling from the shopping cart seat.  Black curls, untamed.  Chunky belly pressing into the bar.  Cheeks flushed as red as the Gala apples in my basket. Eyes dark, bright, brimming with news.  “Daddy.  Daddy.  Daddy.” she says again, watching as he holds her baby brother.

 

Mommy reads the back of a Gerber cereal box.  “This one is good from six to eighteen months.”  She has the same black curls, but tamed, and round cheeks that have matured into round hips as well.  “Hmm” says Daddy to Mommy, but his attention is on their new son, holding him in that way parents do, when they know their beautiful baby is attracting warm, approving smiles from strangers like me.  The baby has caramel colored skin, dark peach fuzz, and enormous eyes the color of charcoal.  I want to feel his compact body in my arms and on my hip.  I want to make him smile.  Rub his cheek with mine.

 I turn back to make my ice-cream selection.  “Daddy.  Daddy.  Daddy!” but Daddy has gone deaf as he coos with his son.  I turn to see his dark haired angel; see her sigh of surrender. She reaches into the open box of cookies by her side, picks one, looks at it, and pops it into her mouth.  Is this the day, I think, that she begins to take a cookie in exchange for love?  Allows dessert to fill in for desertion?  Right there between the baby food and ice-cream aisle.  He never even knew. 

             

I was older than her, but still young.  My mother crouches over my six month old baby cousin, on a blanket on the carpet.   She is laughing, delighted, echoing the gurgles and blowing “raspberries” as the baby thrashes arms and legs ~ chortles back with giggles.  At my mother’s shoulder, I think I am a part of this dance, until, “Mom?  Mom? Mom?’ and I cannot get her attention.  Her eyes are loving someone else.

Another little girl, a Chinese girl of five or six in a restaurant with her gray haired father, and blonde haired mother. “Do I talk too much?”  I hear her say.  Her father gives his wife, back to me, a knowing look and smile.  The girl, in profile, looks up hopefully at her mother. 

“Say no,” I beg in my mind.  Tell her that she is not too much of anything, except maybe too, too, loveable ~ and then give her a hug and say, “What else did you want to tell me?” 

Instead, her father tells her, “Sometimes.”  I am deflated.  Take it back.  Don’t tell her that, this sensitive, intuitive child, who already watches your reaction to her words at an age when most children don’t even know their parents have feelings.  “Sometimes” is the seed of doubt she will feed on for a lifetime now, tentative, lest she step again, unaware, in the minefield of being too much to handle, too much to bear.

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Mike Gleason - Tiny Murders

 

I don’t know how sad or distraught Heath Ledger was.  What I can write about is the two-fold impact it has had over the last week.  Culturally, there is the premature death of a talent actor.  Second there is the death of losing an archetype to the - only until recently - misunderstood and stigmatized lifestyle.  To the untrained eye these may even seem like tiny murders to some but both are very substantial.  First, I can only opine that Ledger probably felt victimized by the overwhelming toll commercial fame can have.  Second, his death conjured up the impact young, violent deaths have on the gay world.  Though Ledger was straight in real life his most famous dramatic role had to endure a life full of dishonesty, self-inflicted anger, and – eventually – loss.  This was a loss that his character was both unable to either express or finds the right confidante for.

 

The week Brian and I got married we went out on one last date before the wedding ceremony.  This date leads us to see Ledger in Ang Lee’s adaptation of Annie Proulx “Brokeback Mountain”.  This ended up being a movie germane to the realities of our lifestyle and far we have recently come.  In the film Ledger – along with actor Jake Gyllenhaal – played the story’s lead roles in the most frank and brutally candid portrayal of unrequited love and its impact.  Meaning, their characters went through what it’s like to both be in love and – at the same time – painfully afraid of expressing their love.  A generation earlier there was “The Boys in the Band” that finally put a human face on the frustrations and travails of gay life.  During that same generation Ledger and Gyllenhaal’s characters lived in the planes states were those was no oasis of hope like New York or Boston.  The film was also set in the 1960s and 1970s when PFLAG, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and college campus gay/straight alliances were not yet household names.  In place of that they had non-empowering lives with very little in the way or archetypes such as Barney Frank.

 

Brian and I left the theater that night both very grateful to live in Massachusetts but also very sobered by the realities that are still out there.  Only to learn two years later that one of the stars of the film should die in a manner consistent with those worn out by libelous tabloid newspapers and the Hollywood movie mill gave us a lot to think over these past few days.

 

I hope that in the past two subsequent years Ledger was able to identify the positive impact “Brokeback Mountain” had on three generations of tireless efforts just to get on health benefits, living wills, and lease agreements.

 

Certainly there will be hate crimes, setbacks like in the case of US Senator Larry Craig, and minority panderers who dangle civil unions like the carrot before the liberal donkey.

 

In regards to the premature death of an actor I realize that commercial, critical, and creative success must have its stress and anxiety triggers.  It is my wish that someone could have seen the warning signs with Ledger and done something to get him help.  What Ledger brought the world was a tangible face.  Not to spoil the ending of “Brokeback Mountain” but Ledger’s character had to live out his years alone and unable to express why he was in such a perpetual state of depression.  That murder, along with the real deaths of Harvey Milk, Brandon Tina, and Matthew Shepard will no longer be regarded as “tiny murders”.  Furthermore, this once again raises questions about Hollywood and the paparazzi for adding Ledger to that long roster of lost talent from John Belushi to Marilyn Monroe only to name a few.  There is nothing tiny about any life.