Rain or Shine

When my then six year old son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes six years ago, I heard someone close to me asking the question, “Why him? Why us? Why me?”, but I genuinely didn’t feel that way. Instead, my response was “Why not him? Why not us? Why not me?” During the stay in the children’s hospital while my son was being stabilized, I walked past more than one hospital room with a terminally ill child inside. The question “Why me?” quickly rang hollow in those hallways. While there in that hospital, I sensed the shadow of a great pair of indifferent dice rolling somewhere in the expanse of the ether. If not this, then that. If not now, then later. If not us, then who?

Even though I was relatively accepting of the diagnosis, I certainly did not believe that from far above, God had sent diabetes to my son. I do not believe that our problems are God-sent, that God customizes individual trials for every single person. I don’t, although I might have before. I don’t want to believe such a thing, frankly. The concept doesn’t make sense to me for a plethora of reasons. Instead, I think life has a way of creating enough problems as it is. But that’s just the gospel of Erin, y’all. You don’t have to agree with me. Still, even if one accepts or considers the premises that our earthly tenure is is meant to teach us about enduring and to refine us and to turn us toward God, premises which strongly resonate with me, I don’t think personalized trials are automatically necessary. Perhaps we have been sent to a kind of earthly boarding school with many degree plans and courses of study that are offered. Doesn’t matter if one person studies agriculture while another learns Greek, metaphorically speaking, since there will be lessons and tests and gains no matter what. And, of course, a non-theist might accept the reality of hard stuff and see the benefits of refinement without having to believe such benefits are divinely directed at all. I get that too.

In any case, life is already so hard, with the melange of problems that naturally occur in the course of a human life span, whether financial, familial, or what have you, that I don’t think it necessary for some higher power to specifically design tough times. Human agency means that there will be enough suffering to go around. But again, that’s just me, just my opinion. Did I mention that already?

For some, a belief in a customized trial probably brings strength and comfort. More power to you!  I guess I prefer my problems to be nothing personal, just life. A roll of that dice, if you will. I do not (currently) benefit from belief in a higher (or lower) power who is trying to trip me up in specific ways, making Erin-shaped cracks in the sidewalk, if you will. I trip plenty as it is. I do find value believing in a higher power who can provide strength, comfort, wisdom, and discernment during those trials. But my limited experience has taught me that here, East of Eden, hurt, pain, and disappointment are par for the course.

But I see, too, that my children, as children are wont to do, hold on to the notion that life should somehow be fair. This mangled concept of fairness, which mostly means that only good stuff should come their way, and especially the good stuff they really want, mightily displeases the mother in me. Why do my children, especially that son who spent those days in that hospital, feel so disappointed each and every time “it isn’t fair!”? Did they come to me already programmed with this fundamentally incorrect expectation about life, with this great existential disappointment just waiting to happen?

When I shared with him the news that our dear friends (who may or may not write about said trip here at Doves & Serpents) were taking an amazing trip across the world to see friends in Japan, he said, “That’s not fair. You’ve never taken us to Tokyo!” And I laughed. He’s right. I haven’t. But where on earth does an expectation that he is entitled to such a trip come from? The sad part is that he genuinely seemed to believe that an injustice was being perpetrated against him. I’m sure you can easily summon the scene, the two of us sitting at the kitchen table eating ice cream, err, chopped salad with walnuts and flax seeds, and then can see his face crumple at the realization that his often inadequate mother was failing him in yet another important way. And then you can see me laugh a little and pull him close. “I’ll take you for sushi,” I offer, and he wrinkles his nose before smiling a little too.  

I hope this wrong thinking by my children about fairness isn’t coming from me. But  lately, I’ve lost some of that equanimity  that sustained me in the hospital years ago, and its loss bothers me. I too wrestle with expectations about life. I know I am happier when I abandon them, those pesky expectations, but my soul doesn’t always quite let go.

Wait! Did I just write the words that I hope this wrong thinking isn’t coming from me? What am I saying? Of course it is, at least in part. It’s one of the beauties of parenting, an opportunity to pass on our flaws and foibles to another generation. (See Larkin, Philip, “This Be the Verse” for further-n-caustic elaboration of said phenomenon. But not if bad words would ruin your day. Please, I don’t need that on me too!)

I don’t think I have wasted much time with the “Why me?” question over the years, so my expectations don’t usually run me aground there, but I have, unfortunately, spent too much time with its flip side, the question that actually helped bring perspective in the hospital, but which curdles when the intention shifts, when I wonder why certain good things aren’t happening in my life: “Why not me?”

I mostly don’t expect God to take away the bad stuff. I understand that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. And if I’m honest, I’m as unjust as I am just, as bad as I am good, as undeserving as I am deserving. I guess that makes me human. When I tally up the ‘bad stuff’ that has happened to me’, my list is definitely in the manageable category. I haven’t been given anything unendurable, and, yes, I know people who have. I can see the difference. One of my sisters, in fact, has been fighting for her health in a battle that seems unending. Doctor visit after doctor visit after ER trip after after specialist after agonizing hours of suffering that leech her ability to function have etched so many tally marks in her ‘bad stuff’ column that her list might as well be a prison cell wall upon which a long forgotten inmate has attempted to scratch out a reminder of days served.  

And despite my wrestling with those expectations, I also recognize that the ‘good stuff that has happened to me’ is far out of proportion to anything I’ve done to deserve it. I was fortunate enough to be born with all kinds of privileges much of the global and historical human family would not be able to even fathom – running water whenever I want or need it, plentiful and nutritious food, leisure time sufficient to learn instruments, access to education, access to climate control, a career that doesn’t demand backbreaking labor for decent wages, healthy pregnancies, a vehicle, resilient health, Spotify. The list goes on…

And yet, I sometimes ask, “Why not me?” when I think about some longed for blessings or observe a particular kind of happiness I would like to unwrap on Christmas morning being experienced by others. Even though I understand without any moral or spiritual straining that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, I struggle at times to accept the way the sunshine falls, you know? How come _______ didn’t happen to me, I wonder? Why did she figure that out? What does he know that I don’t? That sort of thing…

That same sister I mentioned above, the one who has been living in a prison of poor health for far too long, recently asked me my thoughts about justice.  The sad truth is, all signs point to the reality that justice isn’t consistent and is, therefore, unjust, right? Life really isn’t fair, which especially pains me when I think of the lot that has befallen her.

I have seen so many situations where 2+2=5, where people are seemingly blessed or punished wildly out of proportion to their own actions, that I have given up any claim to understanding cosmic math. In years past, I might have tried to crunch the numbers repeatedly, to frantically add or subtract enough to make the equation come out. But I no longer have any sense of what 2+2 is going to equal. I’m not claiming there aren’t any cosmic formulas at work. I will be the first to admit there well could be numbers in the equation that I can’t see. I hope it all evens out. I just no longer have a sense that a tidy outcome, a balanced equation, is what’s going to happen while we’re here at boarding school.  

But I want to be better at keeping a careful and accurate tally, to appreciate both the sun and the rain, and to do whatever I can to create fairness during my time here. I may not have great hope that justice is easily found on earth, but I do have great faith in the power of mercy.