RE: Gary

I hope Gary's Virtual Garden will have a number of positive effects and I
hope they are not trivial. For one, and to me most importantly, it remembers
Gary. You won't see much about him on the news now. It has become the story
of the criminals, as it always does. I feel we have done something good and
positive to call attention to the value of the people who were lost. It
doesn't matter *how* they were lost. The media has to care about ratings and
sponsors, they must keep churning out new, excitingly violent information.
We don't.

Second, it has allowed us a place to express our feelings, if that is what
we want to do. Sometimes listening to the evening news for an hour makes me
want to go out back and scream until I'm hoarse. I think this is a better
way of expressing our reactions. We can say what our hearts tell us to say.

And last, the garden is beautiful. It remembers someone who like us, loved
nature and plants. And it shares those wonders with anyone who would like to
visit and stroll through. I hope that long after the emotional reactions to
this have faded, the garden we create will be there, a thing of beauty for
anyone to enjoy.

However, Gary and Winfield were killed because their murderers couldn't
stand to see someone think differently than they did. So I'd be pretty
horrible to condemn anyone for seeing Gary's Garden differently than I do.
Participate or don't - the choice is certainly yours. (You knew that, but I
wanted to mention I know that too.)
--------
- On a practical note, I have moved the bible quote from the front page to
under the illustration I personally contributed. I feel content I've said my
piece there and it seems more appropriate as an individual statement.

- From the beginning, it has said "created by members of..." Not "The
members of," not by the group in its entirety, but by some who were
interested. I tried very hard not to put words in people's mouths. This is
still easy to change, and I will if the group thinks it should be. It could
easily be "created by friend of..." or have no "created by" mention on it at
all, if that's what is appropriate. I do not want anyone to feel their
membership in this discussion list puts their stamp of approval on something
of which they do not approve, for whatever reason.

- I have tried to incorporate everyone's suggestions into the intro and I
tried not to make it a political message but a statement of the facts.
However, if some feel the site feels more like politics than a garden,
please feel free to make suggestions for how that could be improved.

- I have not yet linked it to the Medit-Plant site, because the address
isn't public beyond this group yet (and won't be till we have the family's
approval.) I had planned to, in case someone finding these pages might be
interested in joining the list - could someone tell me whether a link would
be appropriate?

I will say, I've been very happy about the way the garden has grown so far.
Those who wrote me felt the intro was an appropriate statement, with minor
corrections. Folks have volunteered space, labor, ideas and photos with
complete generosity. I may have gotten it started but it has taken on its
own life, as any good garden will. It is *our* garden now and more
importantly, it's Gary's Garden.

Cyndi Kirkpatrick













Cyndi Kirkpatrick
Eos Development
http://www.eosdev.com
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index