A Time To Mourn
The next phrase in Ecclesiastes 3 is "A Time To Dance". That is the farthest thing from my mind right now. My childhood friend, Frances Mae Luzuriaga was one of the 435 deaths in Spain in the last 24 hours.
"Ching" was literally the girl next door. She was two years younger than I and went to a girls school far from my boys school. Two years difference when you are 12 to 16 is a great difference and as a result we hung out with different crowds. We were always friendly but never close, and after I moved to Spain, we did connect a couple of times though we lived quite a distance apart. Even so, the news of her infection and resulting death from coronavirus has affected me deeply.
Aside from the fact that, to my knowledge, she was a really nice person, I have to wonder why I am grieving. I have always had a problem relating to and reacting to death. Growing up in a violent country, not the US, where sudden unexpected death came frequently could be one reason. Having two cousins die by gunshot and being close by as my grandfather and mother were dying likely thickened my skin to the pain. Being in the Army during the Vietnam War, though I never left the States, and being inundated with news, images and training for combat as well as the domestic riots didn't help. And finally twenty years on the street dealing with death and near death on a fairly regular basis hardened my soul, or so I thought.
Am I grieving for her, or for my generation, or for myself? Having grown accustomed to the knowledge that age is catching up to me I pride myself in the fact that I can ignore or minimize the aches and pains and work around the physical limitations. But this unexpected pandemic is decimating my generation, as well as others. That causes me pain, now personally, but generally to know that it rips the hearts out of all the family of the deceased, the younger generations.
And then there are the questions. Why is this happening? Is this the doing of the God in its wisdom?
I know the Catholic answer, but I have rejected Catholicism and, for that matter, all organized religion. So, disregarding the vengeful god theory, and not being able to believe that a loving god could do this, in what can I believe? My unenlightened belief is that God/god is an organizational power who designed and created...Creation (for lack of a better name). Why? For it's own amusement? That could be the reason behind freedom of choice. It couldn't be for "love of Man" because Man doesn't necessarily love back, and in fact often returns the opposite. Besides, if a god is all-knowing then why bother to create if you know what is going to happen?
Certainly there are many truly wicked people being killed by this virus. They deserve it. There are the mildly or occasionally bad people who deserve some sort of punishment...Oh, screw it, kill them too, but not as painfully. But what about the innocents, the good people, those who made one or a few mistakes but atoned for their sins already. Why? Don't give me the "Test of Faith" answer. I can't point to a better reason to lose faith. Has God/god tired of creation, of mankind and Earth, and is now putting an end to it all?
Been rambling on too much and gotten away from the point. Goodbye, Ching, I believe you're going to a better place but I think it is too soon.
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