Ours Is Not To Reason Why

Everything happens for a reason.

Someone said that last week on TV and Thing 2 squeezed my hand from his bed in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and asked, "Do you believe that, Mom?"

I was only half listening.

"Believe what, babe?"

"Do you believe everything happens for a reason?"

"Oh.  Yes.  Absolutely I do.  Even the bad stuff.  Even when we don't know why.  It's all for a reason."  And we squeezed hands again.  Drifting off to our own thoughts.

I don't know why his bike handlebars fractured his spleen on that trick.  I don't know why his older brother's appendix decided to freak out and go gangrenous exactly two weeks before.  There was nothing I could do to prevent either thing. I don't know why they happened.  They just did.  For whatever reason, we were meant to spend the bulk of July in the hospital rather than on the beach like we'd planned.

Minus one appendix and with a spleen on close watch, we're as fine as we can be now.  And we're all a little bit older.  Sometimes you can feel the grey growing in.

The why will be made known in hindsight.  As my friend Betty's mother says, "Hindsight is 50/50."  These days I'm inclined to agree.  It's surreal when you find yourself living in a trailer for Final Destination 6.

Priorities change and I don't even mind that my event coordinating business has yet to get off the ground.  My family is a shambles.  What're ya gonna do?  It's bizarre.  The path is narrow and treacherous, yet I have to believe it has its singular rewards at the end.


"What does not kill us..." and all that.