Stone the Crow

“Stone the crow” a term of surprise or shock of an absurd event.

One sobering conversation has the ability to change your entire course of life. I once found myself sitting in an average middle class, mid-western, rusty mill town, living room. It had all the similarities to the one that I myself have called home. There was a familiarity in that place for me. But this living room had been transformed into a room that was now less about living and more about dying. It had morphed from a place of family closeness and an origin place for so many of this family’s memories into a space of grief.

Days before our encounter, a devastating whirlwind of destruction had swept through the lives of this unsuspecting family. The oxygen tank looked so out of place next to the wall of family photos. The personal supplies left behind from the…