News

It arrives in all manner of ways. In the dead of night and at the break of day. A message across the miles, as a grand declaration or through a comforting embrace. It shocks and excites us, inspires and destroys us. And without invitation, most times it just happens. Without warning or mercy. The nature of news is a funny thing, because few things in life can lift to dizzying heights one minute and plunge to the depths of despair in the next. Instantaneously. News is one powerful medium.


Friday is Angus' news day at preschool. I only realised this a couple of weeks back, when he began requesting to take various items along with him. As the weeks have gone by, his enthusiasm for Friday news day has gained momentum. He talks passionately about it on and off throughout the week. Considering different items and experiences carefully. Then chooses one he deems to be most newsworthy and runs with it. He is utterly adorable when in news mode. His teachers relay the details of his efforts to me each Friday afternoon and it fills my soul with glorious nourishment. I'd seriously love to be a fly on the wall during the preschool kiddies news sessions. He took along his Cars DVD and a little figurine today. Apparently he did really well. Confident and bursting with verve as he delivered the brief of his beloved Cars movie, to his friends and teachers.


Then there is the news that blindsides us. News we don't want to hear. Today I received a piece of this kind of news. There is nothing I can say, nor anything I can do, because whichever way I look at it, it's just completely devastating. While my intentions were for this post to be a lighthearted one about preschool news and all things lovely, sometimes reality creeps in and flatly refuses to take a back seat. So my mood is solemn and my heart, heavy and broken, for a family who did nothing to deserve a tragedy, that is now their news to tell. News no one should ever have to be the bearer of.