Why Can't They Be Suicide-Murders?

 So in the past week or so, Miami Dade had THREE separate murder-suicide incidents. The first one a husband shot his wife and then himself, the second, in a luxury building near Gables High, the boyfriend shot his lady AND her adult son -- the son survived -- and then himself. And the latest, in West Kendall, an ex boyfriend killed his girlfriend AND her 3 year old son.

As I read the news account of this latest one, I thought I must have SOME connection to at least one of the cases -- Miami is a very small town/big city. And sure enough, last night, as Dr. Barry was driving home, he told me -- the latest victim, 41 year old Odalys, was one of his former nurses. She left his Unit a few years ago for the adult part of the hospital. Barry said she was ALWAYS smiling -- a favorite of the staff.

The news this am is that she had a bad ex boyfriend -- even got a restraining order against him -- but I guess the violent piece of shit was not hindered by the justice system. Just tragic -- the news had videos of the adorable 3 year old. Apparently Odalys was at an ATM getting cash to give as gifts for her son's pre school teachers when the POS found her. He then went back into his own vehicle and offed himself.

A dear friend says she wishes these incidents would be suicide-then can't be murders. If the miserable loser wants off the mortal coil -- fine -- but does he (usually) have to ruin others, too?

Of course, we have a connection to a particularly awful one of these -- now, I guess close to 10 years ago. Our beloved house was built by a husband and wife team, Richard and Jennifer. They had 2 beautiful kids, and moved to West Palm after we bought, in 2000. Wifey kept in touch with Jennifer, and learned on FaceBook (tm) that she and Richard had divorced. They were no longer architects -- he was a realtor, and they had major financial issues -- Jennifer -- a former lady who lunched, was forced to live in a small townhouse with her kids. The kids had both grown to talented high school musicians, and attended the very competitive Dreyfos School.

One awful morning, Jennifer decided to, I guess, extract the ultimate revenge on Richard -- she shot and killed both kids, and then herself. When we heard the news, we were stunned. Jennifer was always a bit eccentric -- but capable of killing her own beautiful kids?

When we had D2's former bedroom, now a guest room, painted, there were crayon marks left by the then pre-schoolers. It was chilling.

My family is no stranger to mental illness. My mother was one of 5 siblings, and either the siblings, or the Baby Boomer kids of them, or grandkids, had serious mental illness -- requiring hospitalization. 

But luckily, nothing as tragic as last week in Miami Dade. Actually, one of my Mom's brother's grandkids died young a few years back -- and though we had mostly lost touch -- assumed it may have been a suicide by overdose.

There it was -- no murder! 

I try to limit my doom scrolling, but being a news junkie, it's hard to avoid. I read about another tragedy close to our friends' house in Maine. A vacationing family, on a lake, was enjoying a lovely badminton time. The aluminum racket broke, as it was held by a 10 year old, and struck his 6 year old sister -- she died in the hospital Kenny works part time. I hope he wasn't on duty then.

The article quoted one of the kids asking his parents if "we will ever be happy again."

Also on our Friday Zoom, Eric and Dana were back from Hawaii, and we were laughing about how, if our late parents knew how much we spent on luxury hotels -- they wouldn't have believed it.

They're renting some luxury bungalos in Marathon for July 4, and taking all their kids and grandkids.

I told him we were taking D2 and Jonathan to LA in November for a dear friends' daughters' wedding -- and then to D.C. in March for Barry and Donna's boy Scott's simcha. Hmm -- gonna cost a LOT of money. Can we afford it?

My late boss Ed, who always traveled first class and took his family along, sagely noted that he couldn't afford NOT to go first class -- coffins have no pockets -- as my late Mom Sunny noted.

But this am I'm thinking about the family of a lovely nurse I never even met. May her surviving family somehow find peace after their grief.