@jaynie & @lizziesworld,

There's always someone, isn't there?

Someone who targets the old and the young, the weak and the meek. Degenerates lacking the moral fortitude to fight for anything larger than themselves. They are the cockroaches of our species, scurrying about in dark corners and stealing with guile what others have earned with gravitas and grit.

No behavior is too low, no undertaking too abominable. "Honor" is not only a foreign concept, the word, and the ideal it is meant to invoke, is one they hold in contempt.

To quote a great poet (me):

One man cannot give another man honor. Nor, may another man take it away, Honor, and dishonor, is something we do for ourselves.

Lizzie, the loss of your money, the meager result of two years of effort, is regrettable. But it is an amount sufficiently small to be written off as ... tuition. The far greater thing that risks being taken from you is the ability of one human being to believe in the goodness of another.

Take a look at the comments on this post. Look at the number of people willing to forfeit a piece of their own meager earnings so as to symbolically share in your misfortune. The trick in life is not "learning lessons." The trick is not learning the wrong ones.

Following this comment, I am going to compose a post: A Poetic Curse, for the cockroach who stole your purse. Curses are like engines ... they need gas to run. So, I will ask readers to fill up the tank with upvotes and donations. I suspect the Power House Creatives (lead by your indefatigable daughter who possesses as much soldier in her soul as do I) will ensure the post's wide distribution. Hopefully, we'll be able to get you back to where you started.

Quill