Keeping up

I watched about 5 episodes of the reality show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" last night. Thanks to Netflix Watch It Now I have watched all kinds of crap I would never otherwise watch. KUWTK is a terrible show. It's clearly scripted and the Kardashians are terrible actors and actresses so you know, you notice and still, somehow I found myself crying during the 5th episode. Khloe Kardashian flies of the handle at her sisters then goes on a bender and winds up with a DUI. All of this on the night of the anniversary of her father's death. Everyone describes her as "Out of control", "a freak", "crazy". Even the scripted discussion of each family member's grief over losing their patriarch, the neat pacakage of explanation for Khloe's bad behavior and Khloe's terse, jaw gritting admission that she has not properly dealt with her father's death but that she will now, at the close of the show, still tapped my seemingly bottomless reservoir of personal grief and/or empathy for those grieving.

Crying about the Kardashian's packaged loss is admittedly much easier than comprehending the grief of two third graders in the after school program where I teach poetry last week. There mother passed away from a sudden heart attack. There are four kids, including a six month old. I ran into them at Walgreens 30 minutes after their father told them and about 20 minutes after our program's director told us teachers. Seeing the shock of death on an 8 year old's face is I don't know, it's awful. Seeing the fear, grief and bewilderment on their father's face was, awful.

Brain can't hang.