I can only guess.

This is an example of PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) for feelings.
PECS is one system (of many) that can provide a way for non-verbal folks to communicate.
Currently, this is not in use in our home, as Shortpants just isn't into it. Can only lead a horse to water... 

You stand in the middle of the room, screaming in a language only you understand. Tears are streaming down your face as you clench your hands into fists, shaking with emotion. Is it rage? Fear? Pain?

I can only guess.

You look at me with an expression that I can only interpret as "HELP ME. FIX THIS. WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M SO PLAINLY TELLING YOU?" as the tears continue to fall, your hands continue to be clenched, and you continue to shake and scream and stare.

And I scream on the inside because I don't know what to do. I can only guess. And that guess, being so very important, is rarely correct. One in an infinite amount of possibilities as to what it is that you need different in this very moment. I scream on the inside until my voice disappears, to the heavens, hoping God hears my plea - but I can only guess.

You come to me, wanting comfort, wanting held; and then you remember. You remember that your emotions are directed at me, and it is my fault - whatever it is - and you claw and scratch and fight and bite and slap your way out of my arms and recover the expression that says so much, but I can only guess.

I want nothing more than to know the right answer: to remove guess from this equation that far surpasses my ability to solve for x; to be able to know exactly what you need, in the exact moment you need it, and to be able to provide it to you immediately - that is my wish, my hope, my need.

But I can only guess.

Poison.

As I grew up and have lived the majority of my life in Kansas, the Phelps family and their "church" is not foreign to me. I went to university in Topeka, and Phelps' followers frequently picketed my school.

This was something I saw often, with the exception of this kid.. Josef rocks my damned socks, though.

Fred Phelps has succumbed to whatever illness plagued him. While I would like to think that he died of a blackened heart and soul, what took him is not my concern. His death is not unlike any other. People will mourn him, miss him, and carry on the legacy (like the choice of word or not, it is what it is) that he has instituted. Topeka will always carry a scar, thanks to the Westboro Baptist Church.

I told myself when I heard he was failing that I was not going to acknowledge his death. That I was going to fight every instinct I had to picket this poor excuse of a human being's funeral and dance on his grave. As a former military spouse, I've witnessed his horde protesting funerals. Picketing a school and calling it's founder -who has been deceased for many years- derogatory terms is one thing; standing at a fallen soldier's celebration of life, chanting hate - that soldier who laid down his or her life to defend the right to do just that is deplorable.

The passing of Mr. Phelps does nothing. It does not erase the hate. It does not collapse the church. His poison has spread through the veins of the vulnerable sheep he has led. As a God-fearing woman, it pains me to be grouped under the term Christian as these people, but I do know that there is nothing that I, or any other living person, could do or say that will rival what that man has received when he attempts to enter the gates of Heaven. My God is a loving, forgiving God, true. But I can't imagine Him allowing the kindling of the fire of hate to receive anything other than the flaming pits of Hell.

It is not my place to judge Fred Phelps or his congregation. He has received his judgement, just as I will one day. Rather than sensationalizing this any further, I will make a conscious effort to be the best person I can be; to be an example of love, in the hopes that it becomes the antidote to the poison that flows so strongly through our country.

"Beloved, let us love one another." 1 John 4:7