When life gives you lemons, make beer

Loss is an unavoidable part of life.

How can we appreciate, truly appreciate, all the bounties and joys in this brief time we have on Earth if there is no loss? Without pain, how do we fully understand the splendor of being pain-free? And what hurts more than loss?

Nothing. The grief that walks hand-in-hand with loss can feel insufferable, insurmountable. It can immobilize us. It can traumatize us. And the hurt it inflicts cannot be exaggerated or overstated.

All of these profound thoughts and poignant emotions came crashing home this week, hitting so hard that people could be excused if they behaved as if the planet itself had come to a screeching halt.

The event of course made front-page news, spreading grief like an ebola outbreak in a kindergarten class. No, not the Legislature’s latest tomfoolery. That complete loss of sanity and sensibility is a lament for another day. And no, the loss of our rustic, peaceful sense of place in the wake of interstate construction and big project approvals isn’t what we’re talking about, either. Heck, they don’t even show a tic on the Richter scale we’re referring to.

Beer. That’s what we’re talking about. Gallons of golden goodness gone. And all because of one tragic moment when a semi truck skidded out of control on I-90.

To those desperate for a silver lining, there were two bits of good news.

First, the driver wasn’t hurt badly. Authorities pried him out of the cab like a pop-top, expressing amazement that he was relatively unscathed.

And two, the untold trillions of trashed cans and bashed bottles of beer flowed downhill from Fourth of July Pass, straight toward — you guessed it — Coeur d’Alene, where throngs of people who occasionally enjoy a refreshing adult beverage waited eagerly.

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This editorial has been brought to you by Lighten Up Beer, whose motto is: “No matter how depressing the news gets, a cold one now and then between friends can make the smiles shine again.”