Please Explain

For so many years, the news of the death of someone I knew came in long intervals and always brought with it a world-shattering shock. Now it seems most every day, Facebook announces yet another passing of someone I knew, some casually, some more closely. The sheer speed and number of them makes each one feel smaller and to my shame, my day often goes on with just a moment’s pause and then it’s back to business as usual. 

 

“It's that time of life,” my peer group would say when our parents began passing away and it was. Now it’s another “that time of life,” as friends and colleagues and siblings and other peers are permanently changing their address to the Other World.

Perhaps part of it is the ease of finding out from Facebook replacing the effort (which I rarely took except for school alum newsletters) of reading obituary columns. Some is the sheer number of people I’ve grown to know through my 45 years at school and 50 years of teaching workshops near, far and wide. 

I now keep a folder on my computer titled “Honoring the Departed” and there are 190 people on that list— family, friends, neighbors, school alum parents and alums, Orff teachers and more. All of whom I had a personal and memorable relationship with. 

 

Of course, this is simply the grand cycle of life and death and no one escapes it. But what I’ve been feeling lately is how good these people that I know are. Yes, flawed human beings like us all and I’ve probably bad-mouthed some of them at different times and they’ve bad-mouthed me. But as I read about the next one to fly away, I mostly remember how they kept their innate goodness alive and offered something beautiful to the world. 

 

And then I read about the next despicable act by the next despicable politician using their precious incarnation to hurt and harm others and can’t help but think, “Why are they still alive?!!” If there is a just God sending the Grim Reaper out on his rounds, why is he skipping their doors and knocking instead at the homes of these lovely people who have used their time to serve life and love?

 

Can somebody please explain?