Finding Jane/John Does and other Sunday news

This article really had an impact on me. The people involved in trying to find out the identities of Jane Does is amazing. I'd love to be involved. One reason it has such an impact on me is that while I was working in Chicago, riding the EL train back to Oak Park, a lady sat next to me & started talking to me. She told me that her nephew had left to go on a road trip & never came back. She believed him dead, but they just didn't know. He'd been gone for over 15 years. I don't know if they ever filed a missing person report, but if they did, it was some years after he'd left. He gradually stopped sending them mail and.... they just never heard from him again. She cried & said that if only they at least knew what had happened, it would be a comfort. I've never forgotten her or her story.

Here's a short clip from the story:

"He spends the next seven to eight hours at his desk, beneath shelves lined with miniature plastic skulls, immersed in a very different world.

Their faces seem to float from his computer — morgue photographs, artist sketches, forensic reconstructions — thousands of dead eyes staring from endless websites as though crying out for recognition. John and Jane and Baby "Does" whose nameless bodies have never been identified. ... He wants to give the Does back their names."

I liked this quote also & thought I would put it here: "Suffering is the tuition one pays for a character degree. - Richard M. Rayner, M.D., SparkPeople member. Rayner goes on to comment that one has a choice when confronted with difficult situations. You can be bitter & die a long, slow death, or you can take courage, and, as in Rayner's words, "The ones who chose character truly live."

My take (and rephrasing) on that one is that you can chose to be a victim, or you can chose to be someone to whom unfair things have sometimes happened... but you're going to continue to be the person you want to be. Idealistic? Maybe. But being more positive about living & life events works for me. And I'd much rather live filled with hope than filled with despair.

Went for a walk, and yes, I looked for that Scottie & was much disappointed that it wasn't outside. Awww! But I did have a good one hour long walk.

Still reading Austen's letters. They're best taken in small doses, so you can get the full impact of them. Also reading Sheep, Goats, Soap by John Malcolm. I love the main character, Tim Simpson, who is a former rugby player & a very unlikely looking art fancier & financier (we would call him a banker in the USA, I think).

Also made the World Peace Cookies, (recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen) and the Austrian Raspberry shortbread. But all I did was make the dough & freeze it. Feels good to get that out of the way, and to get a jump start on the impending frenzy of cooking for the family reunion.