Everything Happens for a Reason........

[merrylea]

I hate those words.  I really do.  That and "It's all in Gods plan" can really go fuck themselves.  Last night I met with a man that was severely injured in the same accident that killed my LH. I had gone into the meeting, quite honestly, not knowing what to expect, but hoping for an uplifting meeting for both of us.  He kept repeating those words over and over, at which point I got angrier and angrier.

 

Look, maybe some things happen for a reason, but everything?  I don't think so. There is a reason that young people in the prime of their life in the midst of building something great get taken away?  There is a reason that the young suffer so horrendously and die without realizing their dreams? I have accepted what has happened.  I am on my way to rebuilding.  I have learned lessons, probably in the most painful way possible, that have made me a better person.  I get to decide what my future looks like from here, which is scary, and if I'm completely honest, exciting.

 

But please do not tell me that everything happens for a reason.  You can say that because you are still alive and found Jesus. Good for you.  If you are dead, experiences do not allow you to grow.  Please do not lecture me about God's plan, because if it were actually his plan to take away successful professional, loving husband, only child to his dad, and any hope for a future family..... God's kinda a dick.

 

I am grateful for the lessons that I've learned.  I'm grateful for the people I've met.  I'm grateful for ability to see a future again and be excited about it, while at this time a year ago I was deep in an ocean of grief.  I grateful for every second that I'm still here, breathing, touching, laughing, loving, working, crying........ because I'm still here.  But.... these revelations have come from MY hard work.  The trade for my late husbands life for me to learn these lessons was NOT a good enough reason. 

[MrsT85]

*stands and applauds*

 

I couldn't have said it better myself, merrylea.  I feel pretty much the same way.  My husband died in a stupid, senseless car accident.  He was student teaching at an underprivileged public school here in Chicago and poured so much of his heart and soul into it that he literally ended up killing himself when (we think) he dozed off for a second behind the wheel.  He just wanted to be a good husband and father and son and history teacher and help make these coming generations better.  If it was "god's plan" for him to die just three weeks before finally realizing this dream...well, then I'm sure as hell glad I'm an atheist. 

[MrsDan]

I hear you. I hate when people express thoughts of wanting to go be with their spouses, and people say No, God's not finished with you have to fulfill your purpose here on earth or some shit like that. Really, cause that's how it works.  Dan had just become a father. He was a mentor to hundreds of kids and who knows how many more lives he could have changed.  HE WAS NOT FINISHED!.

[Guest littlebirdie]

Those people are the worst. If you need to tell yourself that in order to feel better, fine, but don't you DARE say that shit to me.

[anniegirl]

I would imagine that man needed those words to help him cope with what happened to him. It's a survivor thing. The need to believe that this awful tragedy that upended you and affects everything still had some great higher purpose of lesson. We all say things in the aftermath - while we are sorting and trying to make sense - that though it works for us, probably makes someone else feel terrible.

 

Accidents happen. People get sick. Everyone dies at some point. There's no reason beyond the fact that we are mortal and live in a finite reality that we have very little control over.

 

It's okay to assign meaning or believe that you've grown/learned something and it's okay not to. And it's normal to want for there to be reasons, answers and meaning.

 

And there is no reason to take someone else's words as anything more than just words. Your truth is not someone else's and vice versa. But it's hard in the first years to be somewhat "live and let live" about things that just go against the grain of everything we feel.

 

[Baylee627]

I'm Christian, but I am not of the accord that "everything happens for a reason." Accidents and random events happen. And no, I don't believe they are "God's will."

 

I, too, hate when people casually toss out this phrase as if: well, that explains it! This happened for a reason! Now, all I need to do is discover the reason because that's the key!

 

That's just plain ridiculous.

 

Baylee

[Guest TooSoon]

I sort of took those comments in stride (don't get me wrong - I didn't like them) and just tossed them off as well meaning, misplaced comments from clueless people who had no other words but felt they had to say something.  Even people who know where I stand on the whole god issue still said these things which always mystified me. 

 

The ones that always got under my skin were comments that started with "At least you, have M/have a career/have your parents to help/had a good ten years together, etc." or "You're still young, someday you'll, move on/meet someone else/figure it out/remember the good times, etc"  While indeed all of these things may well prove true in time, I sure didn't appreciate it one bit during that first year.  Now I'm just like "yeah, whatevz.'

[Jess]

I have never been a fan of that phrase even pre-widowhood. I have always felt like it is a coping mechanism to make sense out of the senseless. No one has said this to me as a widow. I would like to think I would let such comments roll off my back, but I think in reality I would stew over it for a while.

 

I do feel strongly that although there is not a reason for my husband's sudden passing, I need it to be more than just a horrible thing that happened. I need it to inspire me to make bold choices and live life bravely. Maybe that is my own way of assigning meaning to the meaningless, but what I do know is I am still here and I have to make that matter.

[Ursula]

I had a friend tell me about 10 days after A died that it was probably meant to be like that by destiny, that we would meet, have a son and then we would be separated (...) .........I thought I would have to faint and I told her how bloody insensitive that was. She then was miffed and would not reply for weeks. Said, 'I needed some time after your reply'.....Aaargh. I have given up to wait for understanding from some people. I tell them when I find something offensive. Unfortunately I am a bit of a slow burner and things people say only sink in gradually. But it helps me get rid of  bad feelings by just sending them right back to them.

Nothing happens for a reason, otherwise somebody out there would be a massive sadist in making us all suffer thus...

 

[keeptrying]

I wish I believed there was something "more". Golden paved roads and jumping on clouds with my lovely husband. I envy people who can make it easier to believe that once we die, everything will be wonderful. It is easier than thinking, we just die, and that is it. Unfortunately, it logically doesn't make sense.

Honestly? If I believed in a god who made this horrible stuff happen on purpose, I wouldn?t be comforted. I?d be wanting to find the biggest ladder I could, climb to heaven, and punch the guy?s lights out. Either that, or I?d be wracked with guilt and confusion trying to figure out what I?d done to deserve this, or what lesson I was supposed to be learning from it. If I had a relationship with an imaginary personal creator who supposedly loved me and yet made this horror show happen on purpose, it?d be just about the most toxic, dysfunctional relationship I could imagine.

But it is tremendously comforting to see these events as physical cause and effect.My husband died, bad things happen. Physical cause and effect works that way sometimes. You roll a pair of dice long enough, chances are that at some point you?re going to get snake eyes. You live long enough, chances are that at some point you?re going to get two or three horribly crappy things happening at once.

That can be hard to accept. It can be hard to accept that we often have little or no control over what happens to us. But when I compare the idea that ?Yeah, sometimes life stinks, and I have to deal with it as best I can? with the idea that ?an immensely powerful being is messing with me on purpose and won?t tell me why? I, for one, find the first idea much more comforting. I don?t have to torture myself with guilt over how I must have angered my god or screwed up my karma, with that guilt piling onto the trauma I?m already going through. And would the glib clich? that ?everything happens for a reason? really give this hell more meaning? Would it really be more comforting to twist my brain into absurd contortions trying to figure out what God was trying to teach me, and why the lesson was both so brutally enforced and so obscure?

All we can do is make the best of what we have, WE are in control, we need to keep going. It would be nice to sit around and wait for the day I die and can be with my husband in heaven, where all good things are. For now, I am here on earth, and I need to make the most of it.

[Mizpah]

This is one of those shockingly idiotic "know your audience" moments.  Dude, you're talking to the widow of the dead guy and you survived.  That happened for a reason????  Maybe to you, maybe for you, how lovely and convenient.  Congrats.  But really - some tact, some basic social etiquette.  I've never been good at dealing with that statement coming at me about DH's death.  I never let it go without a remark.  It's too offensive. 

[NoKindaDancer]

I read this post a while ago, but had not had the chance to reply.  This is a topic that very much resonates with me.  I do not believe that everything happens for a reason, I do not believe that my God planned my husbands death to have some greater purpose in my life.  If I thought that, I would hate God, and that would be harder for me.  I believe that there is chaos.  Bad things just happen sometimes and that's it.  This world was a better place with DH in it, and my life was supposed to have him in it.  There is NO good that comes from DH's death. 

 

That said, I keep moving forward, and I keep making the best of what I have, and I'm finding happiness despite it all.

 

I had to sit through the deposition where the man who was driving the truck that lost control that ran onto the sidewalk and killed my husband, told his account of the events.  If he said once "I'm so glad I had my seatbelt on, because it saved my life", he said it one hundred times.  Every time he said it, I thought "you asshole! How can you talk about how glad you are, when my husband is dead".  He could ONLY see his experience of living.  He couldn't see my side, nor could he see that he had killed someone.  Point of view makes all the difference. 

[moncoeur]

I have an older widow friend who says that to me, and I just look at her like with the F is wrong with you? Your husband died you think there was a reason for that?

On and the part about if that is true then God is kind of a d*ck was so right on. I have been thinking that a lot lately. If this is a grand design is is a really really crappy one. It is unjust and unfair.

 

Well Said!

[patriciad]

I absolutely hate that expression.

I remember long before my husband died when I struggling with my son having just been diagnosed with autism and his younger brother having developmental delays as well, speaking to my supervisor.  She had become widowed in her 40's when her husband died of a sudden heart attack.  We were talking about how sometimes it is so difficult  to deal with the events that have stolen our dreams.  And she said, "Pat, some people just have harder". 

I think of her when life gets really difficult especially when I start comparing my life to the rather rosy lives of my friends.  I know they think they have their share of difficulties although for outward appearances they lead rather charmed lives.  And I think of Jean and think, yes, some people just have it harder. No rhyme, no reason,no logic.

 

Don't you kind of wish that instead of saying such a stupid line, someone would just say"It sucks".  That is what comes to my mind when I think about things too much.

 

Pat

[BrokenHeart2]

Yup you nailed it Patriciad! 

[Sugarbell]

Shit people are stupid.

 

Random horrific things/death happen to good people. Period. It's not part of some grandiose plan.

 

And I am a liberal Christian...I do believe in occasional miracles...but I also believe the majority of things that happen on Earth are just random...No rhyme or reason. God helps me cope with the cards life deals out....But he doesn't sit around making people sick or in accidents, etc as part of a divine plan. That's just horseshit.

 

Stupid people.

[serpico]

^^^ I'm not sure exactly how to frame my reply here, because I'm not one to get offended, like, ever.  However, I have a hard time seeing people described as 'stupid' because of how they believe the world works, whether it is based on their religion or just their general worldview.

[Guest marian1953]

Ignorant people then. Just pure ignorance.

[Ursula]

^^^ I'm not sure exactly how to frame my reply here, because I'm not one to get offended, like, ever.  However, I have a hard time seeing people described as 'stupid' because of how they believe the world works, whether it is based on their religion or just their general worldview.

'maybe stupid is just a word to express ones disagreement. But often the same people when questioned about this exact quote 'everything happens for a reason', have no broader idea of things at all and are offended when one does not accept their view of things as the universal truth....which again is a rather narrow minded approach to life in general I believe...

[Sugarbell]

Oh shoot I am not offended serpico.

 

I still stand by that they are stupid. I mean I realize we have much better adjectives to use....but IMO stupid in this case is justifies.

 

Why would someone think that children losing a parent..us losing a spouse to accidents, suicide. Sudden and long term illness be part of Gods plan???

 

And it's one thing to believe it but then to verbalized to the person grieving???

 

That's just plain stupid.

[Ursula]

problem is, people who say that kind of crap, have never been in this situation...otherwise they would not say it....hopefully...

[canadiangirl]

Hey merrylea,

 

I just saw this article from February 2015 in the Guardian.  I think it will resonate a bit on this topic.  It speaks of people who believe that life is fair, which is not so far removed from "everything happens for a reason." 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/oliver-burkeman-column/2015/feb/03/believing-that-life-is-fair-might-make-you-a-terrible-person?CMP=fb_us&utm_content=bufferd7c01&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

 

 

[Trying]

I think there are people who take comfort in the idea that God (or whomever they worship) has a Devine plan for each of us that we can just not understand.  I am ok with that being someone's belief although it is not mine.  I also believe things can be random or the result of our free will.  The issue is when people trivialize what someone is going through in the here and now.  Even if there is a reason why DH got cancer and left his wife, 3 children, parents, siblings and friends, it does not lessen our pain and loss to be told that. 

 

I don't think having the belief is stupid but I do think it's extremely insensitive to think that you can comfort someone with a platitude.

[serpico]

Why would someone think that children losing a parent..us losing a spouse to accidents, suicide. Sudden and long term illness be part of Gods plan???

 

Probably the same reason some people believe they can communicate with their dead spouse or the same reason some people sage their houses or keep energy rocks around.  BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE IN IT.  And I can go on and on, but I won't call any of those things (or the people that believe them) 'stupid'.

[Sugarbell]

Shit serpico you are in quite the mood.  ;D

 

I don't care if people call me stupid for doing those things-shoot my 12 year old says it's stupid and I am stupid for doing it. His opinion his right.

 

I think the "Gods plan" and saying it is stupid. I wouldn't express that IRL...cause well I get along with everyone and try to be the peacemaker in my real life world.

 

But obviously my energy stuff struck a chord with you in previous posts. lol. I rarely remember anything most people discuss in posts. I am flattered.  8)

 

Wishing you a peaceful day