Message received from my mom at 11:42 a.m. Friday: FYI we no longer have a telephone land line.

If you have noticed friends looking quite a bit older in your social media news feeds lately, don’t fret. You haven’t traveled to the future. FaceApp is just the latest fad phone application that allows users a glimpse of what they may look like as they age.

Oftentimes we are so immersed in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives that it takes something monumental to make us stop and count our blessings. A pair of local tragedies in the past nine days has certainly given me a new appreciation for the fragility of life.