We cannot love people into being available or healthy partners. Instead, we must choose people who meet us with care and consistency, despite their traumas. Trauma is not an excuse to hide behind cruelty or to break someone else.
#traumabond #heartbreaks #mentalhealthawarness
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNncwalOL9x/?igsh=MWpiYmxwaXk0Y2tyZg==
Sometimes life takes everything from you—your career, your purpose, even your voice. That’s what Elaine believed, until the day she knelt in front of a dying shelter dog and heard, without words, that she was still needed.
“They called me a dinosaur—right to my face—while scrolling TikTok in my class.”
My name is Elaine Morris.
I taught English literature at Midstate College in Springfield, Missouri, for thirty-four years.
And this spring, I retired.
Quietly.
Unnoticed.
No banners.
No flowers.
Not even a handshake from the dean.
I walked out of Room 204 with a box of worn paperbacks, three dried-up markers, and a half-used tin of Earl Grey tea.
And I left behind a classroom that used to feel like a cathedral.
I started teaching in 1989. Back then, students took notes with pencils that squeaked across paper.
They raised their hands.
They stayed after class to argue about The Grapes of Wrath.
I remember a farm boy named Tyler who cried reading Of Mice and Men—said it reminded him of putting down his granddad’s dog.
Another girl, Amanda, wrote me a letter on real stationery after graduation. I still keep it in my nightstand.
But now?
Now they scroll.
They ask if they can just “email it” instead of speaking aloud.
I used to say, “Turn to page 64.”
Now I say, “Make sure your Wi-Fi’s working.”
Last semester, one of them called me “outdated.”
Another, a redheaded boy with expensive shoes, laughed and said, “No offense, but lectures are like… boomer YouTube.”
They didn’t mean it to be cruel.
That’s the worst part.
They didn’t even look up.
So I stopped asking them to.
I drank my tea.
Read my poetry out loud like I always had.
And walked out that last day with nobody knowing it was the last.
Except Sammy, the janitor.
“Last day, huh?” he said, pausing his mop outside the door.
I nodded.
He handed me a keychain I must’ve dropped a year ago.
“Guess it’s yours again.”
Then he walked away.
I sat in my car for nearly twenty minutes before turning the ignition.
I didn’t cry.
I just stared at my hands on the steering wheel, wondering what they were supposed to hold now.
The next morning, I made oatmeal, out of habit more than hunger.
Fed the birds.
Listened to the wind roll off the Ozarks through my open kitchen window.
And for the first time in decades, I had nowhere to be.
The silence wasn’t peaceful.
It was heavy.
I pulled out an old yearbook from 1994.
There I was, on page 12, caught mid-laugh in front of a chalkboard.
My hair was thick and curly then, a little wild.
My arms were full of books.
And my eyes looked… alive.
Now, at sixty-seven, I wear soft shoes and a wrist brace.
I shuffle more than stride.
And the house feels too clean, like it’s waiting for something to happen that never does.
Around 3 p.m.—the hour I used to prep for my evening class—I opened Facebook.
Just to scroll.
Out of boredom, I guess.
A photo stopped me.
A blurry image of a dog, posted by Greene County Shelter.
White muzzle.
Blind in one eye.
Caption: “URGENT: Hospice foster needed for 13-year-old female, owner deceased. Not eating. Losing hope.”
Her name?
Sadie.
That name pulled something out of me I hadn’t felt in years.
Sadie was the name of my childhood dog.
Brown with a white chest.
Used to follow me into the hayloft and sleep with her nose under my arm.
She died the night I got my acceptance letter to college.
I cried into her fur until sunrise.
Now here was another Sadie.
Also dying.
Also forgotten.
I stared at the post until my oatmeal went cold.
Then I clicked “Interested.”
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I walked barefoot around the living room, stopping to touch the old bookshelf I built with my father in ’72.
I ran my finger across the dusty spines: Frost, Dickinson, Faulkner.
No one reads them anymore.
They want screens.
They want speed.
They want answers before the question’s even finished.
But dogs don’t.
Dogs take time.
I thought of Sadie again—both of them.
And I whispered to no one, “What if I still have something left to give?”
The next morning, I drove to the shelter.
First time I’d been back since volunteering as a student in ’85.
The building was newer now, but it still smelled like bleach and despair.
A girl with blue hair and a clipboard greeted me.
“You here for hospice fostering?”
Her voice was flat, tired.
“I think so,” I said. “I clicked online. About Sadie.”
She nodded.
“Old gal hasn’t moved much. You sure you’re up for it?”
I smiled.
“I taught college kids who thought Shakespeare was a TikToker.
I think I can handle a tired dog.”
The girl laughed, just a little.
Then led me past rows of cages, most full.
Dogs barking, pacing, chewing on metal.
And then we stopped.
There she was.
Sadie.
Lying on a faded blanket, ribs showing, paws curled under like she was trying to disappear.
She didn’t lift her head.
The girl opened the gate.
“Go slow.”
I knelt down—slowly, knees popping—and whispered,
“Hey there, Sadie. You waiting for someone?”
Her ear twitched.
Then she lifted her head.
Blind eye milky, the other watery and deep.
She didn’t bark.
She didn’t flinch.
She just looked at me.
And didn’t look away.
I held out my hand.
She leaned into it.
Her fur was coarse, warm, alive.
That was the moment.
Not when I gave lectures.
Not when I got tenure.
Not even when I won that teaching award in 2007.
This.
This silent, fragile leaning.
That was when I knew.
I had just been chosen.
Not as a professor.
But as a person.
I stood up, knees aching, and said to the girl,
“What do I have to sign?”
The girl raised her eyebrows.
“You sure?”
“I’m not sure about much these days,” I said.
“But I know this: she’s not dying here.”
We rode home in silence.
Sadie in the passenger seat, head down, but present.
I kept one hand on the wheel and the other close to her paw.
Just in case.
When we pulled into my driveway, she looked out the window.
Then looked at me.
And wagged her tail once.
Just once.
But it was enough to break my heart in the best possible way.
🪶 Part 2 – A Name from the Past
“I didn’t expect to cry over an old dog’s name. But some names hold everything you’ve ever lost.”
Sadie was curled in the corner of my rug like she’d always lived here.
One paw under her chest.
The other stretched toward the fire, like she remembered what warmth was.
I sat on the couch, hands folded, staring at her the way I used to stare at midterms.
Carefully.
Afraid to make a sound.
Afraid I’d ruin the stillness.
The vet had sent me home with a bag of medicine and warnings.
Renal failure.
Muscle wasting.
“Don’t get attached,” he said, too casually.
I wanted to say, Sir, I’ve taught five generations of heartbreak in paperback form—of course I’ll get attached.
But I just nodded.
Took the pills.
Paid the fee.
And drove home with a silent passenger.
That first night, I left my bedroom door open.
She didn’t move from the rug.
I whispered, “Goodnight, Sadie,” and felt foolish for how natural it sounded.
At 3:17 a.m., I woke up to a sound I hadn’t heard in forty years.
The soft tick-tick-tick of nails on hardwood.
I turned toward the doorway—and there she was.
Watching.
Waiting.
“Come on,” I said softly.
She walked in slow circles.
Then climbed onto the bed like it was a mountain she’d once known.
When she laid her head on my ankle, I cried.
Not loud.
Just enough to remember I was still alive.
In the morning, I dug through my garage until I found it.
A cardboard box.
Faded blue ink on the side: ELAINE – COLLEGE STUFF – 1985.
Inside: photos, a Walkman, old letters, a bracelet from a student I’d tutored in ‘88.
And at the very bottom—a Polaroid.
Me, age twelve.
In overalls.
Grinning like I had no idea what loss was.
Beside me: the first Sadie.
Mutt of unknown origins.
One ear up, one down.
Her head resting on my knee like it belonged there.
I held the photo next to the new Sadie, now sleeping beside the fire.
They weren’t the same dog.
But grief doesn’t care about accuracy.
It only cares that something you loved is gone.
And sometimes, when the world gets quiet enough…
It sends you back what you lost—just with more gray.
The next few days passed in soft routines.
Morning pills in peanut butter.
Short walks around the block.
Long pauses at fire hydrants like they were memory stones.
She refused to eat dry food, so I cooked her scrambled eggs with goat cheese.
Neighbors noticed.
One of them—Mrs. Lorna Finch, who once told me she “never trusted pit bulls”—came to the gate and said,
“She looks like she belongs here.”
“She does,” I answered.
“She yours?”
“She’s mine now.”
Lorna nodded once.
“Good.”
Then walked away.
That weekend, I took Sadie to the little park behind Midstate College.
The one where I used to read under the big sugar maple after lectures.
I sat on a bench with Sadie at my feet, watching two kids play with a drone.
They screamed at it like it was alive.
Never looked at each other.
No skin.
No laughter.
Just tech.
I thought about my final seminar.
Only four students showed up.
One kept texting.
Another asked if the final could be replaced by a podcast episode.
I told them to just… write me something honest.
None of them did.
That afternoon in the park, I closed my eyes and spoke to Sadie like she was an old colleague.
“I don’t think they even hated me,” I said.
“I think they just… didn’t see me.”
Sadie let out a long breath.
Like she understood.
Like she’d been invisible too.
That night, I was in the kitchen cleaning out my spice drawer when the phone rang.
Landline.
Still have it.
Not because I need it—just because I can’t let it go.
“Elaine?”
A woman’s voice.
Trembling a little.
“This is she.”
“This is Melanie. Melanie Kravitz. From your 2001 Gothic Lit class.”
I dropped the paprika.
“I’m sorry to call out of nowhere. I saw a photo of you with a dog on the Greene County Shelter page. I wasn’t sure if it was you but… your hands looked the same.”
That made me laugh.
They do look the same.
Spotted. Veined. Honest.
“I’m a vet now,” she said. “At Ozark Hills. If you ever need a second opinion, or a favor… I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I do,” she said softly. “You told me I could write. That I didn’t have to marry my boyfriend just because he said so. That I had value.”
I couldn’t speak for a moment.
Then: “Sadie’s sick.”
“Sadie?”
“That’s the dog.”
Silence.
“My grandmother’s name was Sadie,” she said.
“She raised me after my mother left.”
I felt a chill.
“Would you… would you come see her?” I asked. “I think she’s holding on for someone.”
Melanie arrived the next day.
Shorter than I remembered.
Hair tied up.
Still had that nervous kindness in her face.
She knelt by Sadie without saying a word.
Listened to her heart.
Checked her gums.
Then looked at me and said, “She’s tired. But she’s still in there.”
“She’s all bones.”
“So were we,” she said, “when you gave us a chance.”
That night, after Melanie left, I lay in bed with Sadie tucked into my side like a puzzle piece that finally fit.
I stared at the ceiling and whispered,
“What are you trying to teach me, girl?”
No answer.
But I swear—I dreamed in color for the first time in years.
🪶 Part 3 – The Dog Knew Me First 👇👇⏬⏬
“They posted my face online, called me pathetic—and Sadie licked my hand like I was still worth something.”
It started with a ping.
I was sitting on the porch with a mug of chamomile, Sadie curled up at my feet, when my phone buzzed.
13 new notifications.
Strange. I don’t get many these days. Just newsletters, pharmacy reminders, and the occasional forwarded joke from Lorna down the street.
I tapped the screen.
The first thing I saw was my own face.
Blurry.
Washed out by shelter lighting.
Eyes tired.
Hand gently resting on Sadie’s back.
Underneath, bold white text in a screenshot of a tweet:
“Boomer professor retires, adopts dying dog to ‘feel needed.’ This is so painfully sad.”
I blinked.
The caption from the person who reposted it was worse:
“She used to grade my papers. Now she’s grading kibbles.”
1,249 likes.
Dozens of laughing emojis.
I stared at it for a long time.
Long enough for the tea to cool in my hand.
Sadie stirred.
Lifted her head.
I looked down.
Her eyes were cloudy, but they found mine.
She leaned forward and licked the edge of my hand—right where the skin folds into itself.
It wasn’t much.
But it was real.
And in that moment, it meant more than any peer-reviewed publication ever had.
By lunchtime, the post had spread.
A student I barely remembered emailed to apologize:
“It wasn’t me, Dr. Morris. I just wanted you to know. Some of them are cruel.”
Some of them are cruel.
That sentence hit harder than the post itself.
Because when I started teaching, cruelty wasn’t clever.
It was shameful.
Students might grumble or gossip, but they didn’t humiliate you publicly and call it content.
Melanie came by that afternoon, holding a brown paper bag of supplements for Sadie.
She saw my face before I could fake a smile.
“I saw it,” she said quietly.
“Don’t read the comments.”
“I did.”
“I’m sorry.”
I sighed.
“It’s not the words. It’s the fact that they believe them.”
Melanie sat beside me.
“You saved my life once. In a classroom. In a moment. When I was just a kid with panic attacks and a spiral notebook.”
I looked at her hands—now sure, practiced, capable.
She continued, “Now you’re saving a dog who has nothing left. That’s not sad, Elaine. That’s grace.”
I didn’t reply.
But I didn’t cry either.
Which meant I believed her—at least a little.
That evening, I received a message on Facebook from someone named Lenny Parks.
“Saw what happened online. Don’t let them win. I work at the shelter part-time. If you’re ever up for volunteering… we could use someone like you.”
Lenny was young—mid-twenties, maybe.
His profile picture showed him holding a three-legged terrier with a look of such love I couldn’t ignore it.
I hesitated.
Volunteering?
I had taught Paradise Lost for three decades.
Given keynote speeches on Emily Dickinson’s structural rhythms.
And now a stranger thought I might be useful cleaning kennels?
Sadie sneezed beside me.
A loud, wet snort of a sneeze.
I laughed.
Then I messaged back: “I’ll come Wednesday. If you don’t mind old bones.”
He replied instantly: “The dogs won’t.”
Wednesday morning, I stood outside the shelter in worn sneakers and a cardigan I didn’t mind ruining.
Inside, the scent of bleach and wet fur wrapped around me like a memory.
Lenny met me at the door.
“You made it.”
“I said I would.”
He smiled.
“I like that. People say a lot these days. Doesn’t mean much.”
He handed me gloves and led me to the back.
“Start with kennel 12. Old lab mix named Rufus. Doesn’t bite. Just moans a lot.”
I nodded.
“Sounds familiar.”
I hadn’t scooped dog poop since the 80s.
But the body remembers things.
I cleaned.
I scrubbed.
I cooed at trembling muzzles.
It was messy, exhausting, and smelled like heartbreak.
But for the first time in months, I felt useful.
And the dogs didn’t care that I was old.
Or mocked online.
Or no longer “relevant.”
They only cared that I came back.
That afternoon, while rinsing out a metal bowl, I heard barking from the lobby.
Not panic barking.
Excited.
Hopeful.
A family was adopting.
Lenny waved me over.
“You want to say goodbye to Charlie? He’s heading home.”
I peeked around the corner.
A pit mix with bright eyes and a crooked tail was wagging so hard he nearly fell over.
A little girl with freckles kissed his nose.
I smiled.
And something inside me whispered, Maybe there’s still a place for you here.
But peace doesn’t stay long.
Not in this world.
That night, I got a call from the shelter.
Rufus had bitten a volunteer.
They were short-staffed.
Would I come?
I grabbed my keys and went.
When I arrived, Rufus was cowering in the corner of his kennel.
His teeth bared—not in aggression, but in fear.
I knelt, slowly.
Spoke in the voice I used when freshmen cried in my office after a bad grade.
“It’s okay, boy. You’re not in trouble.”
He looked at me, then collapsed into my lap like a falling tree.
I stroked his back, felt every rib.
So much weight gone.
So much trust still left.
And then I said it, out loud:
“Maybe I’m not done teaching.”
Not people.
Not anymore.
But these forgotten souls?
They still listened.
They still learned.
When I got home, Sadie was curled on the couch, tail thumping once as I entered.
I sat beside her and opened my laptop.
The viral post was still spreading.
But something new had appeared.
A comment.
From a stranger.
It read:
“She taught me Shakespeare and grace. Now she’s teaching me what love looks like at the end of life. Thank you, Dr. Morris.”
I didn’t recognize the name.
Didn’t need to.
Because some lessons take years to bloom.
And some students grow in silence.
Later that night, I stood at the back window, watching the moonlight hit the frost on the garden stones.
Sadie came up behind me.
Rested her head against my knee.
I placed a hand on her back.
“We’re not done yet,” I whispered.
Her tail wagged, barely, but enough.
Just enough.
~Permission.
You have permission to inhabit your own life.
To say no
To say yes.
To inhabit your own knowing
Your own body,
And all you allow or do not allow
within it.
To love who you love.
To feel.
To inhabit anger,
contentment,
joy. And heavy sorrow.
To be full of strength,
and to know weakness.
Permission to stand for something. Or to walk away.
To find rest. To tell your story.
To give or take what is yours,
And to never explain why you leave —
Or why you stay.
You have permission, grand permission,
to have a voice. And to use it.
And to let others have theirs too.
To add your voice to the Grand Mosaic,
Your brilliant tile to humanity,
and not be silenced.
You have permission to tell the truth
and to let others tell theirs. Or to be in quiet.
To choose to engage in the old wars
To win the game. To lose it,
or to stand firm.
–Or to find something higher.
To know. –When not to listen,
Or when to be cracked open.
To let the silver spores of being, infuse your life
Or to watch your tender soul unfurl,
and come to flower.
You have permission to be Wild. So wild
To live in, under, to live through.
To experience belief. And what it is to follow.
To Lead,
Or to gather all you own, your whole being, if need be,
and take up your sacred path.
You have permission to live in your full truth today,
Even if it that truth is gone, tomorrow.
To be reborn.
Stunned like a babe, gasping from the womb,
only to find rest in the warmth and soft breast
of new Knowing.
You have permission to follow the call of your soul —
Even if it doesn’t make sense.
Even if it is inconvenient.
Even if it only forms more questions —
Even if it only brings you freedom,
Or a heavy burden.
For you are not a herd beast.
You are a Being of Light
Individuating your way out of the sleeping tribe.
You are an archangel, exalted to human,
Spreading the great arms of your wings
into Life.
You are a Boat Builder,
A Clock Maker,
A Worker at the Compass.
Full of beauty. Complexity,
and magnificent contradiction.
You, my dear, are a Singer of the Soul.
Never,
Ever,
ask for permission.
~ Rachel Alana (R.A Falconer) Midwives of the Soul
photography | Massimo Tommi
The Orgy Dome was destroyed.
Is Burning Man more than just a party?
Burning Man incorporates occult elements through its ceremonial nature and emphasis on ritual, drawing inspiration from the “Mysteries” of ancient ritualistic traditions, though the event itself is not inherently an occult gathering but a secular, non-religious event centered on the human need for ritual and community. Participants create cults and interactive rites as part of the art and cultural experience, turning the event into a platform for radical self-expression and deep, transformative experiences through participation and immediacy.
Ceremonial and Ritualistic Nature
Artistic and Cultural Interpretation of Occultism
Not a Traditional Occult Gathering
The “Occult” Experience at Burning Man
First the sand storm …
Then the rain storm …
It’s amazing …
Foes have made up a story in their mind regarding the collective. They are certain every detail they “know” is correct and true. They do things to “make it” seem so, by sabotaging the life.
Me?
I dream of love. I dream of Soul connection and happiness. The details are many. My Soulmate is silent much of the time. My Family Divine are the true definition of Ninja and Stealth. I laugh at myself a little, thinking about mine adversary and the ridiculous stories they’ve made up. I self-reflect and wonder if my internal story regarding love with the unseen is real?
Or madness …
One thing is for certain; my dreams of love are greater than my enemy’s fantasy for my suffering.
I BELIEVE IN LOVE!
Would you rather die, than share your life with me?
She wrote a song about it …
Her father went to give blood. There was a man complaining, saying “he didn’t want the blood of someone who wasn’t his kind”.
Shemekia Copeland
Shemekia Copeland possesses one of the most instantly recognizable and deeply soulful roots music voices of our time. The multi-GRAMMY nominee is beloved and honored worldwide for the fearlessness, honesty and humor of her revelatory songs, as well as for her winning, engaging personality. The Chicago Tribune says, “Copeland is the greatest female blues vocalist working today. There’s no mistaking the majesty of her instrument, nor the ferocity of her delivery.”
It amazes me still. For 22 years I had what seemed to be 1,000’s of people having a Ball in my mind, in my energy. A regular dance party, a feast! Disruption in the highest!! The Divine sent me in with a mission, and a mission statement … “Learn as much as you can about as much as you can”. My whole life I thought I was failing, life circumstances always falling apart, crumbling.
I recently thought about Royalty, true Royalty, here with us, now. Fully Present.
When things are going wrong and your family divine is being harmed, true high value one’s dive in, and get to work. That means “falling from grace”. That means becoming a “prisoner” like those you mean to assist. That means withstanding the horrors, the blame, wearing the pain, the shame and rebelling against those who insist you are a sinner for even existing.
All of the firsthand testimony of what had occurred to them, the testimony of everything they witnessed being done to others, the secrets they uncover of the abusers, just by surviving, the endurance and strength gained by standing in the fires of destruction … persevering. Secrets, uncovering …
When God decided enough was enough, when you, as transmitters/receivers of the divine had collected sufficient information necessary to secure a victory, Mother Father moved with the Family … and Boy, how did they!!
I am grateful for this life.
I am grateful for you, collective!
Thank you for your service to Life, to Family, to the Most High Divine.
Because of you, the Human Race will continue to exist.
Back to square one.
The “Originals” have awoken.
The “Myths” have come alive.
These ones attempt to CRISPR everyone, failed …
You were too stubborn, the connections to Source, the inner still voice, too strong.
When God said the dead would rise … they have.
But these “dead” were never dead, such as we’ve been told the dead would be …
They, too, were collecting data from across many dimensions and realms, many vibratory frequencies.
Family.
The little boy came to our table of leather-clad bikers and slammed down a paper that said “DADDY’S FUNERAL – NEED SCARY MEN.”
His tiny fingers were still stained with marker ink, and his Superman cape was on backwards. The diner went dead silent as fifteen members of the Iron Wolves MC stared at this kid who couldn’t have weighed forty pounds soaking wet.
“My mom said I can’t ask you,” he announced, his chin jutting out defiantly. “But she’s crying all the time and the mean boys at school said daddy won’t go to heaven without scary men to protect him.”
Big Tom, who’d done two tours in Afghanistan and had a skull tattooed on his neck, carefully picked up the paper. It was a child’s drawing of stick figures on motorcycles surrounding a coffin, with “PLEASE COME” written in backwards letters.
“Where’s your mom, little man?” Tom asked, his voice a low rumble that usually preceded a fight, but was now impossibly gentle.
The boy pointed through the window to a beat-up Toyota where a young woman sat with her head in her hands. “She’s scared of you. Everyone’s scared of you. That’s why I need you.”
I’d seen Tom break a man’s jaw for disrespecting his bike. But his hands shook as he read what else was on that paper – a date, tomorrow, and an address for Riverside Cemetery.
“What was your daddy’s name?” someone asked from the back.
“Officer Marcus Rivera,” the boy said proudly. “He was a police. A bad man shot him.”
The silence in the diner got heavier, thick enough to choke on. Cops and bikers weren’t exactly natural allies. Most of us had been hassled, profiled, some even beaten by police. And now this cop’s kid was asking us to honor his fallen father.
Tom stood up slowly, his towering frame casting a shadow over the small table. “What’s your name, superman?”
“Miguel. Miguel Rivera.”
“Well, Miguel Rivera,” Tom said, kneeling down so he was eye to eye with the boy, a giant meeting a sparrow. “You tell your mom that your daddy’s going to have the biggest, loudest, scariest escort to heaven any police officer ever had.”
The boy’s eyes went wide. “Really? You’ll come?”
“Brother,” Snake spoke up from the corner, and I could hear the conflict in his voice. “He was a cop.”
“He was a father,” Tom said firmly, his gaze never leaving Miguel’s. “And this little warrior just did the bravest thing I’ve seen all year. We ride.”
The next morning, I arrived at the cemetery two hours early. I thought I’d be the only one, a chance to get my head right before the awkwardness and the stares. But then my jaw dropped.
The narrow road leading to the cemetery entrance was already lined with bikes. Not just the fifteen of us from the diner, but our entire chapter. Forty men, standing quietly by their polished Harleys, the morning sun glinting off the chrome. But that wasn’t what stopped my heart. Further down the road, another group was pulling in. The Vipers. Our bitter rivals. And behind them, the Sons of Odin. Word had gotten out. A call had been made for scary men, and the entire goddamn scary underworld had answered.
When the funeral procession finally arrived, the hearse slowed to a stop. I saw Miguel in the car behind it, his small face pressed against the glass. His mother looked up, and her hand flew to her mouth, her expression of fear melting into stunned disbelief.
There were over a hundred of us. A silent army of leather and steel.
At some unseen signal from Tom, a hundred engines roared to life at the exact same instant. The sound was biblical. It wasn’t angry or aggressive; it was a deep, thundering proclamation. We are here. We formed a double line, a guard of honor for the hearse and the family, and escorted them through the gates.
At the graveside, a small group of uniformed officers stood stiffly, their honor guard looking tense as we dismounted. They watched us, we watched them. But there was no trouble. We formed a wide, silent circle around the service, our backs to the family, facing outward. We were a wall, protecting their grief from the world.
After the service, as the last of the mourners were leaving, the police chief walked over to Big Tom. He was a hard-looking man I’d seen on the news a dozen times. He stopped, looked at Tom, then at the sea of bikers standing in silent respect.
“I… I don’t have the words,” the chief said, his voice rough. “Officer Rivera was a good man.”
Tom just gave a short, sharp nod. “He had a good son.”
That’s when I saw Miguel, holding his mother’s hand, walking purposefully toward us. He stopped in front of Tom, who immediately knelt down again. Miguel wasn’t wearing his cape anymore. He was holding the folded American flag from his father’s coffin.
He held it out. “This is for you,” he said, his voice clear and steady.
Tom gently pushed it back. “No, little man. That’s yours. That’s your daddy’s.”
“My daddy was a hero,” Miguel said, pushing the flag firmly into Tom’s huge, tattooed hand. “He protected people. And today, you protected him.”
Tom stared at the flag in his hand, his jaw working, his whole body trembling. The man I’d seen walk through a bar fight without flinching was completely undone by a forty-pound superhero. He couldn’t speak. He just nodded, his eyes shining with tears he refused to let fall.
We didn’t ride away with a roar. We left one by one, a quiet rumble that spoke of a respect that went deeper than clubs or colors or the badges on a uniform.
We had come because a little boy asked for scary men. But we left knowing we’d just met the bravest one of all.
A study conducted in 2018 by Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, found that women who sleep alongside their dogs tend to experience better sleep quality than those who share a bed with a human partner. Surveying 962 adult women across the United States, the research highlighted that dogs were less likely to interrupt sleep and often provided a greater sense of safety and comfort.
Dogs generally maintain consistent sleep patterns and are less likely to snore or move around unpredictably during the night. Many women also reported feeling more secure with a dog in bed, which may reduce anxiety and contribute to more restful sleep. In comparison, human partners were more frequently cited as sources of disturbance due to movement, noise and inconsistent sleep habits.
The study suggests that for women who value uninterrupted sleep and nighttime reassurance, sharing the bed with a dog may be more beneficial than sleeping next to a human companion.🤎🖤🩶
Original post by
@Ludwigmalinois
Have you all heard this?
Sammy Hagar 1977
Crack in the World
I found out what it is that’s been driving me mad.
There’s no room to breathe between the good and the bad.
The crush in-between, there’s a thin, thin line.
But just ’round the corner, there’s a change in design.
I wish I could walk away
And dig what the preacher said.
But those words don’t satisfy me no more.
There’s a crack, there’s a crack in the world.
There’s a crack, there’s a crack in the world.
There’s a crack, there’s a crack in the world.
Just fifty more years we’re all gonna know.
Why, when, where, how, and who get’s to go.
So let’s all have a good time before the great divide.
‘Cause things will start separating come 2025.
So look for the subtle clues
It won’t make the front-page news.
That depends upon which side that you choose.
There’s a crack, there’s a crack in the world.
There’s a crack, there’s a crack in the world, yeah.
There’s a crack, there’s a crack in the world.
opensenseme 