NEWS ALERT!
Balloons
do not go to Heaven.
With all the
sorrow and remembrance ceremonies; the cards and letters and crosses and
stuffed toys and flowers will all get wet in the rain and be picked up by
refuge workers to go to landfills. Our thoughts and prayers make us feel better
but they too will fade to the news of the American Idol final or what the
latest calamity in the White House means defined by an array of talking heads
with various view points.
Have no fear
for there will be another disaster to insure Hallmark will sell more cards and
your local florist will sell bouquets and the clergy will get you to form a
circle and hold hands and close your eyes while the same phrases are shuffled
to the same message. Tears will wash faces and hugs from strangers might just
be a #MeToo moment.
But one
habit we have gotten into is releasing balloons. It seems like a good gesture,
picked up from the Chinese, but their little sky sailors are made of paper and
candles that will bio-degrade unless the wind catches them and they fly into a
forest to start a fire.
Instead we
have these colorful Mylar balloons filled with helium (so you can talk like Donald
Duck) that when released will fly up into the clouds and air traffic
controllers will try to avert collisions.
It is a
lovely gesture and gives a false sense that the message on the balloon will
reach its intended target, but much like our other fallacies of death, the
bubble will burst and drift back down to earth to become tangled in trees or floating
in the ocean with the rest of our plastic. Unless it is large enough to break
out of the atmosphere, a balloon will be drawn back to the ground by gravity,
just like a bullet shot in the air.
Recommendation: After the tears and
sorrowful emotion, hold onto the balloon and release the gas. Give everyone a
chuckle and sound like Donald (the duck not the president). Then recycle the
Mylar. Thank you.
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