Why do some people live and some people die?

THE SEARCH FOR MEANING

Lately it feels as though one horror has followed another. Beneath the shared grief almost everyone is carrying sits a quieter question: how do we make sense of things when calamity strikes?

The floods across Australia, the Christchurch earthquake, the Japanese earthquake and its devastating tsunami, the violent upheavals in the Middle East. And beneath all of it — beneath the daily news, beneath the private traumas of cancer, heart attacks and road accidents, beneath the hard events of ordinary life — the same question waits: Why me? Or is it, Why her? Or, Why do bad things happen to good people? How do we find meaning amid our personal and collective traumas?

From the floods and earthquakes come heart-warming, almost miraculous stories of survival. Yet often enough we then hear how the person next door, or the one clutching the survivor’s hand, did in fact die
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Who could fail to be deeply moved by the young Japanese man who described holding his father’s hand on one side and his mother’s on the other, only to lose his grip and have them both swept away.

In the cancer field, I have watched people do everything it seemed possible to do, and still some lived while some died.

What are we to make of all this? Do we dare to question it? Do we dare to ask: Why is this so?
Can we go Out on a Limb and ask whether it is simply meaningless, random chance, or whether there is a way to understand it all. Is there a rhyme and a reason to it?

Let me say first that, in my experience, when grief is running strong this is often not a helpful conversation to have. Some people find it quite confronting.

Has anyone seen Nicole Kidman’s recent film “Rabbit Hole”? There is a poignant scene in which she and her husband, both grief-stricken by the accidental death of their four-year-old son, sit in a grief group.

One of the other mothers offers something along the lines of “God just had to take our daughter”.

A suitably long pause follows before she adds, “He needed another angel”.

Nicole boils over: “Why didn’t he just make another one? He is God after all. Just a snap of the fingers, easy as that!” Then she gathers up her husband and walks out.

What we are really talking about is the View. The View is the philosophical framework each of us carries, and it shapes how we interpret, make sense of and function in our lives. Whether we are atheists, agnostics or passionate believers in something, those attitudes form our View.

For the mother above, she seemed to draw real comfort from believing that God had taken her daughter to be another of His angels. That was her View, and it shaped her life. It was clearly not the View of Nicole’s character. Perhaps for her it was not even the right time to be contemplating Why? — and certainly that notion affronted her rather than comforting her.

So what is your own View of how life works? And how does that View shape the way you interpret calamity — and the good things too? Because clearly some people seem to get all the breaks, to have everything go well for them.

My mother died when I was 12. A week later, my beloved friend — cleverly disguised as a dog — was run over and killed. Another week after that, while on a religious retreat with my church school, I woke in my bed to find a paedophile, cleverly disguised as one of the male teachers, rubbing up against my back.

My existing View was not equal to any of this. It made no sense. I knew I was no angel, but it all seemed a little over the top — certainly a lot for the fairly sheltered life I had led until then.

THERE ARE TWO CHOICES

Either it makes sense, or it does not. Either there is a way to explain life’s major events, or there is not. Either a rhyme and a reason runs through all of it, or it does not. It must be one or the other.

The conclusion I reached at 12 was that there had to be an explanation; I simply did not know what it was. I think I sensed that to take the opposing View — that life is just a series of random, unconnected, unrelated events — was simply an invitation to depression and nihilism.

If what we experience now is simply random, unrelated to anything in our past, then why would what we do now matter all that much? Does not that View leave us powerless before the random acts of life, and powerless to influence our future?

Some tell me this is not depressing at all — it is simply a matter of accepting that this is the way things are. There is nothing more to it; no need to worry, do not take it personally, just accept it and get on with making the most of whatever life dishes up.

But think about it. If life is random, if there is no cause-and-effect link between our past actions and our present situation, then we are virtually powerless. Why not adopt the nihilistic view of eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die?

To me, even at 12, that choice seemed rather bleak. If the two alternatives are that life is random and we are powerless, or that there is a rhyme and a reason to life we can learn about and put to good use — and if we cannot be sure which is really true — why not go for the rhyme-and-reason choice?

At least it is empowering. And for those who like to be scientific, it matches what is observed in the physical world. There is a fundamental law of physics stating that for every force there is an equal and opposite force. Newton’s Third Law sounds a lot like actions have consequences.

If answering this question came down to a choice made from belief or faith, I would choose the option with the best outcome.

But I do think logic plays a part here too. So many of the things we think and do have observable consequences, whether profound or subtle, immediate or slow to mature.

Plant an acorn in the right conditions and you can be fairly certain where to find an oak tree in years to come. And you will not find apples growing on its branches.

Do we dare, then, to think about why some people live and some people die?

The trouble with even asking the question is that, in the Western world, merely thinking about it — even catching a whiff of it — can propel some people straight into guilt, blame and shame, into wanting to defend or attack others, into anger and a whole range of heavy-duty emotions.

In my experience, it is tricky ground.

I have certainly been in groups where people have exploded over this one.

So I will leave it here for this week. What is your own reaction to the question? Do you have a View about it? What about your family or friends? Know someone you would like to share this blog with?

How do you interpret calamity — and how do you interpret bounty when it comes your way?

Next week, Out on a Limb will go deeper into that big question: why do bad things happen to good people?

RESOURCES

BOOKS

The Dragon’s Blessing: Guy Allenby. My biography, which recounts how my own View took shape and grew, and how it informed both the tough times and the bountiful ones.

You Can Conquer Cancer: Ian Gawler. See the chapters on death and dying and on philosophy.

Coping With Grief: Mal McKissock. A very useful, succinct manual on grief — a must-read life skill.

CD

Understanding Death, Helping the Dying: Ian Gawler. Worth listening to with those closest to you, as a focus for discussion.

Counselling and Groups

NALAG National Association for Loss and Grief

The Gawler Foundation