Often, when I sit down at my computer to write, my thoughts will start spilling over one another, trying to shove their way to the front of the line. Sometimes, just when I think I know what I’ll write on for the week, something will happen and I end up on a completely different subject instead.

This week, for instance, I was ready to write about this hilarious conversation I was part of last week when I got a call from my friend Becky, who is battling a rare form of cancer. Although we didn’t talk all that long, it was one of those conversations I couldn’t shake off. It stayed with me long after we hung up the phone.

There were things I thought I understood well, but when I tried to put my beliefs into words, my reasons sounded lame.

“I just keep wondering why,” Becky had said. “I feel like I’m being punished.”

“You aren’t being punished,” I said, trying to sound reassuring, although I said I could certainly understand how she might feel that way. It hasn’t been all that long since I felt punished myself.

I had been halfway through my second trimester when, on a trip to a store, I encountered an intoxicated man who kept following me around, insisting I smile. It’s not like me to snap at a stranger, but for some reason, I did. I could’ve just as easily forced the smile that he wanted, but I chose not to. Not long after, I lost the baby.

It was because I was mean to that man, I told myself crazily. This was punishment for that.

Two more much earlier miscarriages would follow that first, and then came a seemingly healthy daughter who wasn’t healthy at all. After hearing her diagnosis, I was filled with self-recrimination. I must’ve done something deserving of punishment that severe.

Eventually, though, I came to understand that this doesn’t cause that. If it did work that way, then all the couples wanting babies would have them and the unfit would be barren. If this earned that, we wouldn’t need children’s hospitals or animal shelters or jails.

It isn’t punishment. It’s just life.

During the hardest time I’ve ever faced, I found comfort from a strange place—in the pages of a Stephen King novel. I’m not sure why “The Stand” appealed to me so much, but it drew me in like few other books have. One of the characters in the novel is a 108-year-old black woman named Abagail Freemantle, the story’s symbol of good. No matter what Abagail faced, she’d simply say, “Thy will be done,” and then take it on.

She didn’t question why this or that, she merely accepted her lot and then gave it her best. She had unshakable faith–not faith that more bad wouldn’t happen, but that whatever came her way, she could endure. 

Over and over during my hardest time, I tried to follow that fictional character’s lead. There’s a certain comfort in accepting and giving over. It doesn’t mean you like what you’ve been dealt, and it doesn’t mean you won’t fight with all that you’ve got, but asking why takes more energy than you need to expend.

Accepting isn’t something that happens overnight.

Sometimes there isn’t a why.

Sometimes the best you can do is accept, fight and pray. And enjoy what you have for as long as you can.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 28th, 2007 at 10:04 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.