My least favorite cliche

I am going out on a limb here. I will likely offend. Rattle a few cages. Ruffle a few feathers. Chip a few fingernails.

There is a cliche that I have come to really disenjoy. I used to toss it around and I probably even absent-mindedly believed it...but now having semi-survived true tragedy...I find that it is like a fork dragged across a chalkboard. Bubblegum on the bottom of my shoe in July. Very strong, bad coffee that you accidently drink after it is cold from sitting on your desk for three hours.

I really dislike the phrase, "Everything happens for a reason."

I think my dislike for this phrase began when my children were sick in the NICU. It grew when Sam died. When Hannah died. When Camille began to lose her vision. When Camille had severe glaucoma. When Carol was diagosed with lung cancer. When my Grandfather died a slow death. When one of my favorite patients died of complications related to AIDS. When I watched a nine-year-old girl, skinny, bald and sunken-eyed, hop into a cab in front of Children's Hospital, obviously just done with chemo or an appt with her cancer doctor. When a tornado took the lives of four young boy scouts at camp near Omaha. When the facilitator for my ROP telesupport group was brutally and randomly attacked to within less than an inch of her life in NYC.

To me, it seems that so much in this world doesn't happen for a reason. It just happens. And it bites the big one. There are no answers. We live in a physical world. A world that is not heaven. A world that is not perfect. A world where we cannot be protected from harm.

To be honest, I wonder if God thinks that some things in this world bite the big one, too. I could be totally wrong, but I like to think that God doesn't like to see any of his children suffering any more than I do. He would rather see us all happy. Everyday. All of the time. Yet, he knows the earth is the earth and not heaven. Things happen without reason. Things that can't be changed. Thngs he cannot protect us from.

I think that God disliked our week as much as I did. On Wednesday afternoon, Bill was at home with Camille, who had a fever. I got paged at work at about 2:30. I called the number back. The voice on the other end of the line said, "Omaha Fire and Rescue" and proceeded to tell me that Camille was being taken by squad to Children's Hospital as she had seized at home with Bill.

She had two seizures that day. Both somewhere between 10-15 minutes long. I saw the second one. For those of you who have ever seen a grand mal seizure, you know it is a terrible thing to witness especially if it is your child. 10 minutes seems like hours. The tears flow, as there is nothing you can do until it stops on its own or the medicine works its magic and leaves the child sedated and exhausted.

All I could think as I sat with Camille that day in the ER as the tears flowed was, "Why her AGAIN? With the NICU, the surgeries, the vision loss, the glaucoma?" Everything does not happen for a reason. There was no reasoning to be had for that little girl that day.

We stayed in the hospital for about 30 hours. This picture was taken in her hospital room during her many hours of rest and recovery and testing. Camille's seizures were deemed "complex febrile seizures" which means that hopefully, they will never happen again, and if they do, they will only occur with fever or significant illness and she will eventually outgrow them. For the time being, she doesn't have to go on any medications. I pray she never will, as the medication can have side effects that would hinder two of her greatest attributes: her personality and her cognition.

Finally, today, Sunday, we are seeing glimpses of our true Camille. The medication is wearing off. She is finally able to walk. She is talking. Even smiling.

And I find comfort in the fact that there is no reason. And God knows that there isn't, and so he is there for me, for Camille, for Carol, for the little girl with cancer, for the families of the boyscouts who were killed, for Susan.

And even though there is no reason, He challenges us to find the goodness in what we do have and what comes out of the "reason-less". And share it. And support one another. And lean on him when we cannot find stability on this earth, which is always....because this isn't heaven.

What keeps me going is the dream that if I do it right, I will have the chance to look into the eyes of Jesus at the end of my life, both of us crying tears of understanding, and having him say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."