re: #45 A Mom Anon

I have been pondering that sort of question for awhile now. I’m losing a friend to lung cancer, he’s at the end of his life and fighting to stay here so hard right now. One of the most generous people I’ve ever known. So, if everything happens for a reason, then why does a 47 yr old guy, who quit smoking 8 yrs ago, have to die of aggressive lung cancer. He’s a dad with more friends who love him than I can even count right now. He has made his part of the world SO much better just because he was there.

Meanwhile, assholes get rich and get all kinds of perks just for being assholes. And people like Robin Williams, beloved and loved, get so overwhelmed by life they kill themselves. I don’t get it at ALL. And it’s going to be REALLY hard for me to hear someone say my friend is “in a better place now” at his funeral that will be coming soon. Really? How is not being here with his daughters (age 20 and 16) a better place? I just do not understand it.

This is a good part of why I’m an atheist. I cannot convince myself that there is any justice to the world but what we make ourselves, or meaning to life but what we give it. My Niece posts endlessly on FB, thanking God for this or that, talking about how she’s really dealing with Satan sometimes, and all I can think is, “Or maybe it’s all just random shit that happens.”

To me, life can be so beautiful by random chance that to think it had been made that way on purpose would diminish it. And sometimes life can be so shitty that to think it was made that way on purpose would leave me feeling powerless in the face of a cruel and capricious omnipotence.

But hey, that’s me.