The Love Story Behind This 2,500- Piece Beer Can Collection Up For Auction is Filled With Emotion

The Love Story Behind This 2,500- Piece Beer Can Collection Up For Auction is Filled With Emotion

(Link): The Love Story Behind This 2,500- Piece Beer Can Collection Up For Auction is Filled With Emotion

Dec. 2021
by Cortney Moore

There’s a 2,500-piece beer can collection that’s gone up for auction, and behind it, there’s a love story.

Luverne Kahl’s husband “Catfish” John Kahl collected beer cans in the 30-plus years of their marriage. John died in 2019 at the age of 83 after a two-year battle with Parkinson’s.

The unique auction item, which was first reported by The New Orleans Advocate, began in November and will conclude on Saturday, Dec. 11.

Luverne told Fox News she’s now ready to part ways with the collection after her home suffered damage from Hurricane Ida earlier this year.

The couple had previously rebuilt their home in Pearl River, Louisiana, following the devastation Hurricane Katrina left in 2005, and it took them a year to recover.

Couple Die of Covid, Leaving Behind Newborn and Five Children

Couple Die of Covid, Leaving Behind Newborn and Five Children

Such a sad story. Condolences to the family and friends of the couple.

For those of you who may visit this blog every so often – especially if you’re an unmarried adult who wanted to marry (and maybe have children too), but you find yourself single (and childless) into your 30s, 40s, or older, I think news stories like this one are eye opening.

Just because some people do marry (and have children) doesn’t mean it’s a happy life or a happy ending.

I have more news stories on my blog (see “Related Posts” below) of people who died shortly before or right after getting married! I have news stories of people who died in a car crash on their way to their own wedding and so on.

Here’s a couple who each died shortly within one another, not long after the wife gave birth.

I feel particularly bad for the children – to grow up with neither parent. 

And really, Christians who “hype” marriage (and parenthood) way too much, to the point they shame singles for being single and not having children – such as Al Mohler – need to stop doing so (as they sometimes do) by falsely painting this picture of “most to all of your problems in life will be solved if you just marry and have children.”

(Link): California couple die of Covid and leave behind 5 kids, including newborn daughter

September 13, 2021
by William Wong

Daniel Macias wanted to wait until he and his wife, Davy Macias, recovered from the coronavirus before naming their newborn daughter.

But about a week after giving birth, the mother died of Covid-19 complications. And nearly two weeks after she died, so did her husband.

Davy Macias was 37, and Daniel Macias was 39, Terri Serey, Davy Macias’ sister-in-law, told NBC News on Monday.

The couple, both of Yucaipa, California, left behind five children, ages 7, 5, 3, 2 and 3 weeks.

Wife Hospitalized with Covid Comes Home to Find Husband Dead from Virus

Wife Hospitalized with Covid Comes Home to Find Husband Dead from Virus

This poor lady. Condolences to her.

One reason I am posting this is to highlight that there are no guarantees in life – getting married is not some kind of magic spell that will make you immune to heartache or loneliness.

I’ve seen marriage-pushing conservatives, both secular and Christian, promote marriage by creating podcasts or blog posts trying to “scare” single adult into getting married by saying things like “If you don’t marry, you’ll die alone!”

After Covid became a thing, marriage-idolater Brad Wilcox, of the National Marriage Project and Institute for Family Studies, began publishing anti-singles hit pieces, saying how married people were doing better in the pandemic (no, they are not. See links at the end of this post).

You can get married but still end up alone – for one, if your spouse dies from Covid.

If the virus were a sentient being, it wouldn’t pause when it comes to you and think, “Well, I’m not going to get into this person’s respiratory system, because they’re married!”

You can be married all live long day and still end up dying – or your spouse could die before you do, leaving you single once more.

Time for Christians to stop marketing marriage as some kind of cure-all for everything that could ail a person.

(Link): Wife Hospitalized with Covid Comes Home to Find Husband Dead from Virus

by Jackie Salo
August 26, 2021

A Florida woman says she returned home from battling COVID-19 in the hospital to a “nightmare” scene with her husband dead after also contracting the virus.

Lisa Steadman, 58, said she was horrified to walk in Wednesday to discover her 55-year-old husband Ron’s body in the bedroom of their home in Winter Haven, Fox13 News reported.

I Married Young. I Was Widowed Young. I Never Want A Long-Term Partner Again by R. Woolf

I Married Young. I Was Widowed Young. I Never Want A Long-Term Partner Again by R. Woolf

Hunh, but growing up, and even now, my fellow conservatives (some secular, some Christian) keep promoting the notion that married people are happier!, healthier! and just doing better! than single adults. But this woman’s editorial says, nah.

Not that I am in total agreement with all of this woman’s choices.

(Link): I Married Young. I Was Widowed Young. I Never Want A Long-Term Partner Again

Excerpts:

When my husband died, I vowed to stay single in my after-life. Not because I was grieving, but because domestic partnership was something I had no interest in doing again.

My marriage was traumatic in a way that I wasn’t fully cognizant of until it ended abruptly and my need to raise my four children in a household free of toxicity became my first priority.

My vow to stay a single mother would not mean limiting myself sexually and emotionally. I decided I would keep lovers — non-committal but satisfying short-term pairings.

What I came to find was that this decision, which steered me away from the kind of relationships I was conditioned to accept as status quo, would lead to the least toxic and most beneficial relationships I have ever been in.

Bride-to-Be Sparks Uproar with ‘Vile’ Wedding Date Selection: ‘A Self-Centered Monster’

Bride-to-Be Sparks Uproar with ‘Vile’ Wedding Date Selection:  ‘A Self-Centered Monster’

And many secular conservatives and Christians like to teach that marriage makes people more godly, loving, self-less, and mature – no, it sure does not. Here’s another example.

(Link): Bride-to-be sparks uproar with ‘vile’ wedding date selection: ‘A self-centered monster’

by Emerald Pellot

Fri, April 23, 2021, 2:22 PM
….A woman doesn’t understand why her friend planned her wedding on the seventh anniversary of her family’s death.

She explained why she doesn’t want to attend the wedding on Reddit’s “Am I the A******” forum. She lost her husband, daughter and mother in a car accident. Every year, she visits their graves on the anniversary of their deaths.

But this year, her good friend planned her wedding on the anniversary and forbade her from visiting her family at the cemetery instead.

Husband Dies of Covid-19 Only 48 Hours After Wife Gives Birth to Premature Baby

Husband Dies of Covid-19 Only 48 Hours After Wife Gives Birth to Premature Baby

Contrary to a lot of secular and Christian conservative marriage and nuclear family propaganda, getting married and/or having children are not guarantees that you won’t die alone or won’t face other hardships in life.

Maybe the following news headline could be used as one argument about why it’s better to remain single and childless.

(Link): Husband Dies of Covid-19 Only 48 Hours After Wife Gives Birth to Premature Baby

Michael Keene, an Army vet, got COVID-19 in early October. He died three weeks later, 48 hours after Nicole Keene, gave birth prematurely.

 By Meghan Holohan
Dec 18, 2020

After struggling with COVID-19 for three weeks this fall, Jeffery Michael Keene, 39, was admitted to the hospital. Doctors tried stabilizing him without intubating him, but they had to place him on a ventilator on Oct. 16. Wife, Nicole Keene, worried. She was a respiratory therapist and knew that being on a ventilator was “not to be taken lightly.”

But then Keene went into labor at 34 weeks and her son, Michael Wesson, was born unresponsive. Doctors sent Wesson to the same hospital as his father. Two days later, Michael died without ever knowing Wesson was born.

What the Critics Get Right and Wrong Concerning the #WakeUpOlive Phenomenon – Regarding: Prayer – So Christians Really Are Deists

What the Critics Get Right and Wrong Concerning the #WakeUpOlive Phenomenon – Regarding: Prayer- So Christians Really Are Deists 

December 20, 2019

Several days ago, I believe on Friday, December 13, 2019, a little toddler girl named Olive died (Olive Alayne Heiligenthal). 

(Edit, Dec 21, 2019: I saw a report that the church will be holding a memorial service for the little girl, so it looks like at least some of them have accepted that the little girl is gone.

(Link): Hope for girl’s resurrection shifts to Bethel memorial service

(Link): Family giving up prayers to resurrect 2-year-old, ‘moving towards a memorial service’)

I am sorry for her passing. I am sure her parents and other family are in a lot of pain due to her passing. They have my condolences.

Since their little girl Olive has died, the parents and the church they attend – Bethel Church – have been leading a “Wake Up Olive” movement, and some of that is being carried over on Instagram and on Twitter (you can search for it (Link): here on Twitter).

These Bethel people are expecting God to raise Olive from the dead, because they are praying and expecting God to do so.

You can read more background and details about this situation and several news sites, including these:

(Link): In California, a Christian Megachurch Is Trying to Bring a 2-Year-Old Girl Back to Life

(Link): Christian Mega- Church Prays for Resurrection of Two Year Old Girl

I believe the critics of the movement, who have been tweeting regularly about this situation, are right to say that the parents need to accept that their little girl has passed on, and that no amount of prayer or faith is going to bring her back to life.

The little girl has been deceased for about seven days now.

The last I read, a baby sitter put the girl down for a nap, and the girl stopped breathing.

Other sources say that Olive is at a morgue now, has been there a few days, and an autopsy was already performed.

There are other aspects of this story I don’t care to address in this post – for example, some people suspect there is foul play in the death of the girl, and some people think the Go Fund Me set up for this family in light of Olive’s passing is suspicious.

The aspect of this story I want to address is the issue of Prayer and Unanswered Prayer and biblical promises.

I’ve actually addressed these subjects several times over in older blog posts of mine (such as in (Link): this post), but I am seeing them crop up again in light of this story about Olive’s passing.

Now, I am not a Pentecostal.

I am neither a Cessationist or an Anti-Cessationist.

If you’re not familiar with those terms, here is a web page by guys who consider themselves Cessationists who explain what some of these terms mean:
(Link): Is cessationism biblical? What is a cessationist?

So far as my understanding of the Bible is concerned, I am somewhere in the middle of that topic.

I’ve written posts on that in the past such as

(Link): Extra-Biblical Knowledge – My Thougts Expanded and Clarified – And: Christian Deism

While I absolutely do not believe that little Olive is coming back to life on Earth – no matter how much her church prays and believes for that to happen…

….I am just as much in disagreement with the number of Christians I see arguing theology about this matter, especially the ones who are denigrating faith and biblical promises in the process.

Widow Whose Husband Died Sues Over ‘Loss of Sex’

Widow Whose Husband Died Sues Over ‘Loss of Sex’

So, being married does not, contra conservative and Christian propaganda I heard often while growing up, guarantee an end to loneliness (if your spouse dies), and it does not guarantee hot, steady sex.

(Link): Woman whose husband died sues for £650k over ‘loss of SEX’

Jamie Finnegan was left brain-damaged and passed away in 2018 after a procedure at Brisbane Hospital went wrong six years ago

By Jenny Awford

THE widow of a husband who died after a botched medical treatment is suing the Australian government for £650,000 over a loss of sex.

An Update On My Self-Absorbed Ex Friend “Doug” – The Friend Who Made My Mother’s Death All About Himself

An Update On My Self-Absorbed Ex Friend “Doug” – The Friend Who Made My Mother’s Death All About Himself

Here is the background on this post – if you want to know more about Doug (not his real name), and why I am angry at Doug, please see this previous post for the details:

(Link): People Really Hack Me Off (Part 2) The Clueless Christian Who Likes To Send You Upbeat Updates About Himself In Reply To Your Announcement of Your Mother’s Death (ex friend of mine named “Doug”)

The very, very short of that post is that…

Doug was a Christian guy who is very self-absorbed, ever since I knew him back in our twenties when we went to college together, and he later made my mother’s death all about him.

He sent me an insensitive reply to my e-mail telling everyone on my e-mail account that my mother had passed, and I had sent this e-mail within a few days of the funeral.

He wrote back to send me a very chipper, upbeat response going on and on about how great his life was going.

“Doug” didn’t care about me or what I was going through. He didn’t hardly comment on my mother’s passing – his e-mail reply was mainly about him, him, him, and him.

For the next two to three years, I stopped all contact with Doug, until I finally sent him a link to a page about how NOT to talk to someone in grief.

I told him in that e-mail he was guilty of doing to me what that page said NOT to do.

Doug wrote back, defended himself, dug his heels in, and he actually had the audacity to lecture me on how he thinks I should be handling and reacting to my own mother’s death.

(At that point in time, he had not even lost anyone close to him, so he was in no place to offer such condescending advice.)

I wrote him back, chewed him out over that, and told him never to write me again.

Doug Tried Contacting Me Again in June / July 2018

I heard from Doug (not his real name) a few weeks ago (July 2018, or maybe late June).

He sent me some kind of private request on Facebook.

It was not a friend request, but some kind of request to talk to me privately on Facebook’s messenger system or something.

There was an “accept” and a “decline” button attached to that notification.

The Entitled, Insensitive Comments Left by Entitled Christian Mothers, and the Men Who Support Them, Under the Post ‘Don’t Ask Moms To Stand In Church This Sunday (Mother’s Day)’

The Entitled, Insensitive Comments Left by Entitled Christian Mothers, and the Men Who Support Them, Under the Post ‘Don’t Ask Moms To Stand In Church This Sunday (Mother’s Day)’

As of 2018, the snotty entitlement and insensitivity of some mothers – and Christian men who support them – continues.

I’ve been blogging about this topic for a few years now on this blog. It makes me sad to see this still going on.

DefendTheSheep (person on Twitter) tweeted out a link to this reasonable essay imploring Christians to be more sensitive towards those who find the Mother’s Day holiday painful. Link to that:

(Link): Don’t Ask Moms To Stand in Church This Sunday

My problem is not with the essay itself.

As a matter of fact, I encourage you to click the link above to visit the page and read it.

My problem was with some of the hideous comments various people left below the page.

Some of the comments were just incredibly insensitive or very mistaken about why some people find Mother’s Day – especially when it’s celebrated during church services – to be hurtful or stressful.

Christians often like to teach that parenthood and marriage are necessary to make people more giving and loving and compassionate, but that is not so. The married parents leaving comments under blog posts such as the one I am discussing here are very selfish and entitled – being parents has done nothing to make them more loving, caring, or empathetic.

Sex Robots Are Being Made to Look Like Customers’ Dead Wives

Sex Robots Are Being Made to Look Like Customers’ Dead Wives

I do not find this touching. It’s gross and weird.

(Link): Sex robots are being made to look like customers’ dead wives… and one firm insists it’s the best way to help with their grief

by G Harrison

For many people, the social aspects of owning a sexbot are far more important than the physical side of things

SEX robots have become so lifelike that bereaved men are flocking to order dolls designed to resemble their dead partners.

More 40-Something Single Women Falling Prey to Dishonest or Violent Men in Dating (says report)

More 40-Something Single Women Falling Prey to Dishonest or Violent Men in Dating (says report)

I don’t know how accurate this type of story is. Sometimes the media like to report ideas and leave the impression there is a huge crisis going on, because it generates panic and makes for good click-bait and gets them more views and hits.

For example:

(Link):  When Newsweek ‘Struck Terror in the Hearts of Single Women’ – Bogus Study Said Women Over 40 More Likely To Be Killed By A Terrorist Than to Marry

This story is in a UK-based paper. I’ve no idea how common this is in the United States vs. the UK. Some of the folks who left comments below the (Link): Twitter post felt that the article is “victim-blaming.” I don’t know if I took it that way or not.

I have posted other stories to this blog before of women who were killed by men they had met online, and one story about a guy who was robbed (and I think killed) by a woman he met on a dating site (she brought her male friends with her to the man’s house, and her friends killed him – she was part of the plot). I don’t think it’s necessarily “victim blaming” to remind people who use dating sites to use caution when meeting people through sites.

(Link):  The tragic story of Helen Bailey’s murder shows how easily an unscrupulous character can fool a lonely romantic by J. S-Porter

“At 49, I met and married a man within three months. It was a disaster, and I quickly realised I’d been hopelessly naïve. Sometimes the dream gets in the way of reality”

Excerpts:

A successful middle-aged woman was murdered by a partner she trusted implicitly. Helen Bailey’s story is shocking because it reveals how little she really knew about her partner of five years. How can such an intelligent person be so oblivious to the dark side of her lover’s personality?