Of Tootsie Rolls and Gray Hair

It's been two weeks to the day, nearly to the hour, since the tornado ripped through our town to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. And that amount includes only those things upon which we can place a monetary value. It doesn't begin to address other losses we've incurred. For some of us, that loss is a sense of security. Our young kids are frightened. They can't sleep. They don't want to be too far from Mom or Dad. My own Bella, usually one of the most joyful kids you could imagine, is suddenly fixated with death and dying. She doesn't want to die, and the only thing I could say that finally brought her peace is that if it was time for her to go, the tornado would have taken her. Clearly, I told her, there's more in store for her. She thought about that, and her 7-year-old brain wrapped itself around the idea that...
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