Mexican drug lord ‘El Mencho,’ leader of Jalisco’s New Generation Cartel, has been killed in a military operation.
Civilians are being advised to stay indoors amid cartel retaliation and street violence.
My daughter stopped coming out of her room six months after her best friend died in a car accident. She was fourteen and the grief swallowed her whole, turned her into this ghost who only existed behind a closed door I wasn't allowed to knock on. Her therapist said to give her space, her father said to give her time, but I was watching my child disappear and nobody could tell me how to pull her back. I'd stand outside her door at night listening to her cry and feeling like the most useless mother who ever lived.
She mentioned once, months ago before everything went dark, that her friend always said if she could paint her room any color it would be hot pink because her parents would never let her. Such a small stupid thing to remember but it was the only piece of her I had left that still felt alive. I bought the paint on a Tuesday, the kind of bright aggressive pink that makes your eyes hurt, and I didn't ask permission. Just walked into her room while she was at a therapy appointment and started painting her door. When she came home she stood in the hallway staring at it and I thought I'd made a terrible mistake, crossed some line I couldn't uncross.
She touched the door and started crying, said "this was her favorite color." I told her I knew, that I remembered everything she'd ever told me even when she thought I wasn't listening. We spent the next three days painting her whole room together, barely talking but working side by side. Found custom drawer pulls and hooks in a shop in matching pink and installed them while she told me stories about her friend I'd never heard. Started a small shop myself actually, selling painted doorstops and coat hooks in wild colors, every purchase going into a fund for teen grief counseling. My daughter helped me photograph them last week and I heard her laugh for the first time in eight months. This door didn't fix everything. But it opened something between us that had been locked shut. Her friend would've loved how bright it is. My daughter says the same thing every time she comes home now. That's enough.
By Jasmine lamb
Finished the entire Bible it’s been a 13 month word by word page by page no skimming journey. Humbled, enlightened and amazed at what I read and what I learned. I will rest and meditate on so much. I will begin it again.