“In the final analysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people translates itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened” Harold S. Kushner When bad Things Happen to Good People

I guess the last few weeks this has been on my mind more than anything else. I have not been feeling too articulate as of late, so I haven’t written much, but what has been on my mind the most is what I intend to do now.

First, when people use the term “getting over it” when talking about a tragedy or loss I just try to pretend in my head that they have misspoke. There is no “getting over it”. I think it is more like putting the loss into perspective. In this same book, Rabbi Kushner compares a tragedy or loss to a giant bolder. When you are standing right in front of it, all you can see is the boulder, but if you can step back, the world around it comes into view, putting the boulder in perspective and allowing that person to see the joy that world holds. I hope that is what I have been doing.

Through all of the ups and downs of this loss, I have tried to hard each day not to lose sight of my son, my family, my friends or our faith. I don’t want that boulder to eclipse these things because they are not only what have sustained me, but I feel like losing sight of them would not be honoring the memory of my daughter. It would be like making her an obstruction of the life I have and I know she was not put on this earth to be any such thing. She was and is, part my life – a life which I give thanks for every day – so I can’t make her loss the only thing in that life. I know I have so much to be thankful for, and I have truly felt that with my whole heart each day even when my grief has been at the worst. What I have struggled with is incorporating the idea of this loss into that gratefulness. Can you be grateful for such a tragedy? I’m not sure but I know I am grateful to have a daughter that is in heaven. I know I am grateful for the opportunity to be her mother. And, I think I can be grateful for that boulder that is now part of the landscape of my life. I am just happy that I can finally start to see the joyful world around it.