Tragedy in Florida

LAKE BUTLER, Florida (Jan. 26) - A car full of siblings headed home was crushed between a truck and a stopped school bus, killing the seven adopted children just two miles from where they lived. Investigators were trying to understand why the driver of a truck hit the car from behind, pushing it in to the bus that was carrying nine students.

Everyone in the car was killed Wednesday, including the 15-year-old girl who was driving illegally. Tina Mann told CNN that her niece, who had a learners permit, had dropped off another child and was taking her siblings home "to get ready to go to church.''

"Even though she was an underage driver, it's my understanding she did not cause the accident,'' Mann told CNN. "The same thing would have happened had there been an adult in the car with her. We'd just have one more death in the family.''

What a tragedy! A car of siblings was stopped, waiting for a school bus, when a truck failed to stop. The fact that the driver was 15, and only had a learners permit, was not a factor in the accident.

The mother of the adopted children, as you might expect, was hysterical. What an enormous amount of pain and suffering for a person to bare. This is one of those stories that invites so many questions. In the coming days I am sure we will find out "the rest of the story."

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The older I get, the more loss affects me. I realize it is because of accumulated loss. It has only been recently that I worked through the grieving process of most of the losses that I experienced since I was a child.

Last night I found out that my cousin Bruce, who lives in Connecticut, died this past August. It has been more than twenty years since I saw him, and today I regret not keeping in better contact.

Bruce was very funny. He had a way of bringing laughter into serious situations. He was an overcomer. Someone who experienced a lot of pain in life, but managed to recover, and bring many others to the road of recovery with him. His wife, Johane, was a major force for change in his life. I know she and all of his family miss him very much.