The Sidney Sun-Telegraph - Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper

Twice in a short period of time I’ve heard the phrase “be fiercely kind.”

It sounds like the craziest of oxymorons. Be fierce, and be kind. Kind, fierce. Opposite ends of the spectrum, or complimenting sides of the same coin?

The most recent time I heard this was in a memorial. A friend of mine left this earth. His wife, children early in their adulthood, and his friends are left to move on.

During the celebration of life service, many talked about how he was such a “get-it-done” kind of guy, a “man’s man” in the sense of being task-oriented. He was younger than I, so for a...