A sunset reminds us that life is beautiful even when we can’t see it.

I’m working exceptionally hard on reframing how I view things. I’m battling an all-out war to get these negative thoughts to be positive. I hide it as cleverly as possible with these muses, ensuring that “all’s well that ends well” every time, or else I don’t write.

So now you know when you haven’t heard from me (in, um, a month), you know I’ve been battling my hostile demons again and had nothing positive to come of it.

Yes, sometimes it takes me that long to come around.

But then, something miraculous happens. Maybe it’s because I can’t take it anymore. I miss you. The silence of not expressing myself seems far more torturous than the fight to be positive. Isn’t it better to say something than nothing at all?

I have to bust out of my negativity and write something–even if it’s not amusing!

Here’s an example of a personal level of how I might get some news and think negatively. (In case you were wondering).

“Oh no, Skylar got Covid. She’s away from home. There’s nothing I can do.”

But with some reframing, I found the positive.

“Oh yes, I’ll fly to Nashville to be with her. I can take care of her like when she was a baby.

And that’s what I did. It gave me an excuse to be a mama again–talk about feeling like I’d gone to heaven! I got to cook for her, get stuff in the house (okay, B&B), wash her clothes, and wait for her to wake up so I could feed her again.

If only all reframing could be this easy. Unfortunately, this won’t be.

A nineteen-year-old student at my daughter’s college died of a stray gunshot wound to the head. She was walking around a track only half a mile from where my daughter and I were on campus when a guy shooting at cars hit her instead.

I had spent a few hours before that moment in time in a different park with Skylar, enjoying the fall beauty in Nashville. The day tricked you into believing it was spring, summer, or fall, depending on where you looked, and then you saw the orange, yellow, and reds, and you remembered the glory of fall!

No one had any idea that anything could have happened. The dear girl lay there unfound for an hour while I took Skylar back to her apartment. We realized there were just a few more errands to run, and we had just enough time before my flight to run to Publix.

We returned and got Skylar situated–she was exhausted. It was time to say goodbye. I hadn’t hugged her the entire time, so regardless of Covid, I insisted I get a hug, “I can’t leave without hugging you.”

I hugged her goodbye.

I went outside, sat on the wall outside my daughter’s apartment building, and ordered my Uber. The Uber was two miles away, though I had to wait 20 minutes.

No one had any way of knowing that was the time they found the girl.

I heard the ambulance siren taking her to the hospital. Maybe I prayed for her at that moment. I always pray when I hear a siren, but now that it matters so much that my prayers were with that girl, giving her that hug she needed at that moment, I can’t remember.

I only pieced this together when the university informed us what happened the next day. She died later that night.

As a mom, this hits you hard. When I learned she was a music business major (to my daughter’s songwriting major) and lived in the same dorm my daughter lived in last year, right across the street from my daughter’s apartment now, it hit me harder—the excitement of dropping off your daughter after move-in day vs. the solemnity of moving out mid-term without her.

Can I reframe something so devastating as this?

I don’t know how, mostly because I feel so vulnerable. I had just had those precious moments with my daughter. I got to hug her goodbye. Imagine not getting that chance. I can’t begin to imagine.

The parents in the message boards have been instrumental in keeping us all together. We pray while one woman has taken charge and determines what else we can do.

Because the simple truth hits us all: what can we do when something like this happens?

We have to do something. It’s unbearable to live with the situation otherwise. Raise money for the family? Someone was on it. They already distributed the mother’s Venmo account so we could send money.

We can pray. People are praying around the clock, whether or not they can sign up for the 24-hour prayer vigil that the moms started ever since we learned about this Wednesday.

We can get involved with legislation measures (apparently, the shooter had done this before). Another woman was on top of setting up that group.

And then we can get into negative territory. We can worry. This tugs at a mama’s heartstrings–not having a chance to say goodbye.

Not that saying goodbye would ever be enough. That dearly departed soul had so much to look forward to, and now we’ll never know what that would be.

Even though we didn’t know her, we know her now. We see the face of our daughter as we grieve her loss.

But we can only go so far down that vortex or wind up deep within a well of sadness we can’t escape.

I’m working on having a positive attitude; that doesn’t mean I can’t be sad. Or that I can miraculously reframe this story to have a happy ending.

However, I can reframe this tragedy to breathe down my back and whisper in my ear that every minute counts, to be grateful for my time, and to treat every moment like it’s my last. They are cliches, though it’s a start.

With all this negativity in the world (and even the negativity within us), we’ve got to turn this around. Be grateful for the last time you hugged your loved one. And when you meet again, rejoice. What a glorious, celestial hug that will be!