You are all so sweet---I appreciate your caring concern I'm sitting here at my computer where I can look right out at my PHM-----I will surely be enjoying it this year---- - maybe DH can remove the affected canes if it can help the bush----this rose is especially dear to me--- - Marleah---thank you so much for your offer--it is very sweet of you -thank goodness I have three more Zeffys besides the original bush hopefully they will stay safe---it would be devastating to lose my original one that Bob heard me talking to when he gave me the name Zeffyrose-I was so sure Iwould never touch the computer that I wasn't much help in picking a name----(famous last words)---- Thanks ago for all your kind thoughts Florence

Donna, The story of your nephew touched me before I even read your posts. It was one of those awful things one hears on the news . . . hard to comprehend how something like that can happen . . thinking of the family and friends left behind, and how traumatic to deal with something like that, then I was reading your post, and thought, OMG . . . that sounds exactly like the accident I heard about locally. My heartfelt sympathy to you and to Sean's family. What a tragedy beyond words. There was a lovely article in this morning's paper about Sean, and how some of his students had a special yoga session yesterday in his memory. What an incredible young man . . . the article also told of how he'd let his hair grow long, then cut it off and donated it to cancer victims. Just glimpses into this young man's life. There was an Optimists Creed quoted that the article said that he held dear, . . . "Promise yourself . . . to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble." What wonderful words . . . Through your posts . . . through the newspaper article . . Sean has become much more than a "statistic", which seems to often happen when one doesn't know the family or situation directly. This senseless death has certainly affected people in this area . . . kind of a stunned disbelief that something so freakish can happen on our freeways . . . the kind of thing that it could have happened to anybody . . . that it did happen to this incredible young man with so much to give our world . . . And, this, on the heels of another very tragic, senseless death locally . . . that of a young 25 year old policeman, shot while assisting another officer with a routine traffic stop. He leaves behind his young widow, and two month old son. So terribly sad . . . as someone said while watching the funeral, and his widow holding their precious baby, the little guy has no idea how his little world has been so completely rocked . . never to be the same. Totally different situations, but two young lives snuffed out way before their time . . . Again, my thoughts are so much with you and Sean's family . . . May you all find the strength to get through all of this . . Please know that many thoughts and prayers are with you . . . Chris

Losing a child is my greatest fear. I am so so sorry that you are having to go through this. Please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.

I'm holding that little family in my thoughts & in my heart. My neighbors, husband & wife, lost a nearly-full-term baby boy; the hospital said they could have him cremated, or buried, or they could take him home. so they brought him home, & he's buried on their land (legal in Texas). The neighbor & his wife learned that the parents of some stillborn or miscarried babies had no place to bury the little ones, & the county cremated them or buried them in "potter's fields". So they got the hospital to dedicate a small area as an "Angel's Garden"; it has benches & angel statues & paths among beautiful flowers, & bereaved parents can have their little ones' ashes scattered into the flower gardens. heartbreaking to think of the necessity for such a thing, but it's comforting to know that grieving parents now have a beautiful place to sit in, to reflect & to remember.