This made me cry

[giandujakiss]

Hit-and-run victim was quiet and dependable, co-workers say

(via TPM)

Comments

[el1ie]

As much as I would like to say the arrogance and contempt of my fellow human beings toward one another can no longer surprise me - once again I'm proven wrong.

I hope I never personally have to meet the kind of person who could leave a comment like that about another, it makes me very sad and thoughtful about what others must think of my life choices and circumstances.

[darkemeralds]

That story has more pathos in it than almost anything I've ever encountered.

It reminds me quite a bit of the way Timothy Egan wrote of ordinary people who died in The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America--he dug up the names and a great deal of detailed history about two young Italian men who came to the US, worked backbreaking jobs, sent a few dollars home, and perished in the fire: seemingly nameless nobodies from a century ago, and yet there they were, vivid and real, heroes to their families and, finally, as worthy as anyone of being honored.

I'm just reading Connected: The Surprising Power of our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, one of those mind-changing popular science type books, and it's making me think a great deal about individual as nodes in a network, and the scientific truth of John Donne's "no man is an island."

Thanks for pointing me to Neil Alan Smith's story. The bell tolls for all of us.