The inequity of life

There are so many things I have lost, besides my daughter. Try as I do to maintain a positive attitude in the face of irritatingly persistent challenges, I can't help but think of all the things I have lost since December 29th, 2010. My sense of joy in life, for one. When she died, part of me died too. You are robbed when your child dies. The losses are emotional, psychological, physical, financial, social. Just like any other violent assault or trauma, healing is painfully slow. The scars never go away.

I look around me and I see people that otherwise look a lot like me on the outside. Yet for the most part, their lives have not been devastated the way mine has. Probably some of the have troubles, maybe even significant pain. Some of the others basically lead a charmed existence, where things just fall into place for them, without much work or worry or disappointment.

I see the gap widening between myself and others. Their lives seem so foreign to me. What must it be like to have a life without carrying this heavy weight?

The inherent inequity of life: it just is the way it is. It seems that for me, things just cannot come easily, at least not right now. Maybe not ever. It seems very strange to me when people look me in the eye and say, "I just know things will get better for you." I don't know why they would say that. Maybe things will get better, or maybe they won't. Maybe they'll get worse. That's always a possibility.

Of course, I should add the perfunctory remark about being grateful for the blessings and good fortune I have had in life. I most certainly am thankful for the positive aspects of my life. It's just that the most precious, sacred act I have ever attempted ended catastrophically. It's not as if I was trying to broker peace in the Middle East, win the Nobel Prize in Physics or any other unrealistic goal. I was just trying to do what we are all born to do. It didn't seem that unreasonable an expectation.

At this point, I have just come to accept that for some of us the road is harder. I don't know why we have been chosen for this. It's just the way it is.