Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for August 20, 2015

Way to vent your anger, Hol.

@rhelburn, I replied to your question about their father’s death on yesterday’s strip.

This is awkward too!

I feel sorry for you if you can only see a guy who’s nice and laid back and goes with the flow as a ‘submissive zombie’. What is it you define as ‘manly’? Yelling? Threatening? Being overbearing? Making demands? Is that what you see in the men in your life?Everyone has their own personality. Some people are going to be more or less what you expect of them, some are going to be the complete opposite, and some are going to be such a tangent you can’t quantify them. All of which is realistic. And that’s why people are wonderful.

I thought it was touching that Phil removed his helmet as a measure of respect in the graveyard.

This is great what Jan has done combine present to past. Phil is right on careful approach.

I love the current story line but I have to ask. Where is the Gotta Love August series of full panels? When there are four feet of snow outside, I look at the Gotta Love August set and know that summer is coming. Please don’t tell me they are gone.

I think Phil (& Wally’s) “submissive zombie” qualities are admirable.

Agreed Phil.

Hostile? Holly is grieving the loss of her father! And I think Phil understands that.

And now that he and Val are married I think everything will be fine. Great even!

Seems to me he got into a near-fatal accident showing that side of him a few months ago. Of course, that was off-page.

Phil is behaving like an actual grown-up instead of a man-child. He knows Holly has been through a lot, and that she is afraid of losing her mother, just in a different way. He’s secure in his worth as a human being, and this lets him be kind instead of jealous and controlling.

I fully understand Holly, I lost my dad when I was 15. I couldn’t cry for months. My mom was only 41 and she never remarried. Said her love was so strong for my dad that she could never love that way again. This year she would have been 99 and my dad 110.

Holly is Angry with her dad for Dying.And, of course, she Can’t admit That, so she expresses it by being Angry with Everyone Else at times..It’s the 2nd Stage of Grief reaction to the death of a loved one...