Whenever I hear this trite cliché, “Everything happens for a reason.” I want to smack a person.
This statement is only made by people who have never had anything truly horrible happen to them, or to people who believe (erroneously) that the bad things that happened in the past brought them to the good place they are in the present.
I am grieving a friend and companion mother who has passed away. I have known Dolly for 17 years. In the beginning we were close and have since drifted. She is my granddaughter’s other grandmother so her presence has always been felt in my life. When our granddaughter was born, we both stayed the entire night at the hospital. We were that excited and that happy to welcome Cadence into the world. Dolly and I are two very different women who found common ground in our love for our children and granddaughter.
When we met, I was 43 and Dolly was 42. Dolly and I come from the same generational space, we were into the hippie culture of love and marijuana. Dolly had three children at a very early age, and I had two. We had both been raised in poverty and suffered from the kind of neglect that comes with being from a poor family. It wasn’t the best beginning for either of us. We both found good men to love, men who supported us both emotionally and financially.
In the last 17 years, all three of her children were married and each had a child. Since that time that I met her, her first son was murdered in a drug deal gone bad. He and his wife were estranged and Dolly lost sight of that grandchild. Dolly’s second son was killed by a drunk driver. Because his child’s mother was not capable of taking care of their child, Dolly took that child / her grandson into her home to raise.
Our kids divorced and my son got custody of our granddaughter. For a long time, he was generous with her time and visitation with Dolly.
Dolly was then widowed, but not before developing cancer for the first time. Everyone was so happy with her first remission! After Dolly was widowed, her home became chaotic and the drug culture of her youth returned. Dolly never used, but with her daughter and daughter in law coming and going, it became hard to keep track of the house.
There came a time when my granddaughter’s visitation to Dolly’s home had to stop. It was just too risky for her to be in that environment.
Dolly contracted cancer for a second time, but again was able to beat it. She kept her faith and her Christianity became her most important support. Dolly’s grandson was 15 years old when his girlfriend became pregnant. Dolly made the decision to bring that child into her home also.
It was just too much, it was all just too much. Remission was no longer; and after collapsing because of her third round with cancer, Dolly passed, surely exhausted and surely having experienced more grief than is fair for one body to experience in a life time. So “what happened for a reason” in Dolly’s life?
Oh, there is more to this story, much more…
Lest you think that Dolly is an anomaly, what of the thousands of soldiers with this fate:
Soldier comes home from war missing his left leg. He suffers from PTSD and depression. His family can’t seem to reach him through the malaise of his depressed feelings. The doctors put him on medication, he doesn’t take it. Six months later he commits suicide.
Will you tell his grieving mother, father and family “everything happens for a reason”?
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