Why?

The wind was strong. The door was stuck... and then it wasn't. It all happened so fast. In a split second that no one saw...until hours later. Definitely an accident that would fall into the category of freak.

The heavy beat beat of the helicopter blades brings a chill to your bones, even on a 90 degree day. You hope and pray it is no one that you know. But it is, as it so often goes in a small town.

The question was discussed, probably in a cramped room without windows, in the presence of cold, vinyl, antimicrobial furniture and commercial grade carpet as witnesses. Hang on, or let go. Sometimes you just have to let go. A boy, now a man, no longer has a mother. Grandchildren have lost a Grandma, and a husband no longer has a wife. An entire family has lost...Her.

Sometimes I just don't get it. Would it have mattered that much to let someone live a few more days, months, years. Surely there must have been a better candidate out there. Why?

Starkly, you realize there is not that much difference between that family and yours. Death, such as this, has no vaccine, no remedy, no treatment, no preventative measures to be taken. You get home and stare at your children, committing their faces in this moment to memory - for what if there is not another? You notice their shoes scattered at the doorway and pray their fat warm healthy toes will always fill them as long as you draw breath. You wish your husband was home.

I know. I know. "His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts", but that still leaves us swimming in a murky pool of gray, feeling our way through. We reach for the tattered ropes of our lives and vainly try to tie them nicely back together. We try to solve the equation and realize that faith does not equal knowledge or a life here on earth without despair. We can only pray that somehow faith will add up to hope and possibly someday to that peace that passes understanding.