Post by Dan Cummings- Sometimes, the emotional weight of the week's biggest news stories cannot be easily lifted. This was such a week.  Starting with a homicide of a Syracuse teen last weekend, tragic loss of life multiplied as the week went along.  A longtime school teacher in Jordan-Elbridge dies in a motor vehicle accident.  Her husband, a volunteer firefighter, was among the first responders to the accident scene.  A young man dies in a motorcycle accident, and his two brothers somehow push forward to keep playing lacrosse, as members of the Final Four-bound SU Orange.

And, two young children and their mom die in an Eastwood house fire.  Firefighters never had a chance to save any of them. 

I bet I'm a little like most of you who might read this.  You didn't personally know any of these people... whose lives were suddenly cut short by fire, accident, or violence.  But regardless, you identify with the surviving family members, friends and others who DID know them...and will never see them again.  And like them, you ask "why?"  When that one-word question isn't answered for you (it never is...it can't be), you whisper or say aloud a prayer or two (or a hundred), hug your own family a few extra times...and move on.  All the while knowing that for so many in our community...those who WERE touched directly by these tragic losses...there really IS no moving on.  Nothing will ever be the same for them.