Maybe it was because they played that heartbreaking Sarah McLachlan song

This morning while I was making breakfast, NPR had a short piece about a homeless shelter in Oakland that held a memorial service for all of the homeless people who had died over the past few weeks. One of the women who had organized it said she felt that the passing of these people's lives should be recognized no matter what their circumstances had been in life. "If their deaths aren't recognized, then it's as if they never existed. But they did exist," she explained.

One man, newly homeless, became very emotional and stepped away from the ceremony. Like any good newsman, the NPR reporter followed the man to badger him with questions. He shared how scared he is, how he has been trying so hard to make things work, and he is wondering when things are going to start to come together, or if maybe this is just all that his life is going to amount to.

Something about the story struck a nerve. Maybe it was that I've been worried that The Clementina Show has been suspiciously subdued due to the cold weather. Or maybe it was that I wasn't yet caffeinated. Or maybe it's just sad. I cried. But just a little. And then I forced myself to pull it together and get the zucchini bread out of the toaster oven before it burned because that would have been really sad.