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Milestones like birthdays and graduation can be painful after someone you love dies. As I graduate from junior high school this year, I am thinking about whether my dad is proud of me and imagining how big his smile would be on my graduation day.

Learning how to include my dad when big moments arrive has helped me both celebrate my accomplishments and remember him. I incorporate my dad into my daily life by wearing a necklace with his fingerprint on it. I wear it every day, and whenever I feel sad I hold it and remember that he is always with me.

I lost my dad when I was 7. It was hard at first to open up to people. One thing that helped was going to Experience Camps, where I was surrounded with people my own age who have gone through the same loss and understand how I am feeling. It helps to remember each summer that I am not alone.

Losing a loved one is hard, especially celebrating the big moments without them. Everyone grieves in their own way, but I’ve found that incorporating my dad into everyday moments and major milestones can help. For me, this means talking about my dad to friends and family and listening to music that we shared together.

Aislynn Jarvis

Lindale

CONSPIRACY

I thank God for Bishop Strickland speaking out that the virus is a conspiracy. This is the beginning of what is the “New World Order,” a mark of the Beast in the book of Revelation. I believe the Chinese are anti-semitic and anti-Christian.

The president recognizing Jerusalem, Israel, as a capital was the beginning of the movement to the “New World Order.”

Walters Williams writes we are losing control of the country because of the virus — a sure sign of the “Beast.” Food shortages are already occurring and the next step is the “Mark of the Beast” to obtain food and necessary items.

The government handing out money will make many depending on government help. Years ago Tennessee Ernie Ford sang a song that describes what will happen: “I owe my soul to the company store.”

There is no word for “coincidence” in the Hebrew language. This conspiracy is real. Read St. John’s “Revelation,” if you haven’t already.

Ann Mitchell

Tyler

TAKE ‘REOPENING RISKS’

Many people, including some state governors, big city mayors and federal bureaucrats have forgotten what the “Shutdown,” “Shelter in Place,” “Stay at Home” and “Quarantine Orders” were intended to do. It was to “flatten the curve” of the rapidly growing numbers of new COVID-19 cases in this country so that the hospitals and medical staffs would not be overwhelmed. That objective has now been met. Currently, the hospitals and staffs have adequate beds, ventilators, masks, other protective gear and much new medical knowledge to better treat new cases.

The shutdown and its restrictions were never intended to keep all of us from ever having a case of COVID-19. But that is what many in political authority are now trying to do by extending existing political shutdown orders, reopening very slowly and in a few states creating new restrictions for the coming months. Even the hard-hit New York governor recently stated that “the existing shutdown is not sustainable.”

This coronavirus (without a preventer vaccine) may be around for several years until most of the population has been exposed to it … and each of us has been shown to be immune, became immune, had a light case of it or the worst case of it. Then the virus will have no more hosts and will die out; forever or for a short period of time remains to be seen. If we don’t open up all the economic and social forces of the country soon, the restrictive orders will eventually cause the deaths of more citizens than the virus. These orders are also causing serious damage to the basic economy, social nature, education system, political institutions, religious institutions and culture that makes us Americans. Continuation of the political shutdown and restrictions is no longer justified. Texas is fortunately on the right track, however, many more reopening risks need to be taken now!

Jack Gibson

Hideaway