Life Is Not Fair
Random Life Events and
Why I Know I Have the Best Husband in the World

I was just read­ing “It’s all Ran­dom”, by Geezer Chick and I have to say I totally agree. But why do some peo­ple seem to get most of the painful randomness??

I am sit­ting here try­ing not to feel so sorry for myself, on top of my chronic con­di­tions, I have caught, (even though I was not chas­ing), THE COLD or FLU. I don’t even want to spell what I feel like phys­i­cally. Also I have been stressed and sad for a long time. In 2009 I lost 5 fam­ily mem­bers, includ­ing my father whom I loved dearly. They were all mem­bers of the great­est gen­er­a­tion. Too many of my friends also lost their fathers this last year.

Emo­tion­ally I am totally thank­ful for my life. I could have had all of these con­di­tions and live in Haiti. No, I prob­a­bly would have already died from my ills if I had lived in Haiti (so would have Is Still Here).

Why in all this “Ran­dom­ness” would so many cat­a­stro­phes befall this small coun­try? It is the poor­est coun­try in the west­ern hemi­sphere. Not long ago it was hit with 4 destruc­tive trop­i­cal storms, now it is going through the after­math of a dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake. They have not only lost many of their elder gen­er­a­tion, they have lost whole fam­i­lies. How do a peo­ple get through and over­come such adver­sity and loss?

Early in my career as an illus­tra­tor, I worked on a gov­ern­ment doc­u­ment encour­ag­ing busi­ness invest­ment there. I wish that I had read more of it or at least retained what I did read, but that was over 30 years ago. My daugh­ter in law did mis­sion­ary work in Haiti, with her par­ents, when she was a teenager. A good friend had recently posted on Face­book about a group try­ing to help poor Hait­ian chil­dren who are basi­cally being used as house ser­vants (slaves) by their more well to do rel­a­tives or acquaintances.

To be hon­est, though, until this earth­quake, I had given very lit­tle thought to Haiti and its peo­ple. Unlike the dis­as­ter of Kat­rina, that touched peo­ple I knew personally.

I am sit­ting here, warm and dry, in a safe place, drink­ing safe water, watch­ing CNN. Why, because I am lucky enough to have Is Still Here as a hus­band, (the best hus­band in the world.) He is keep­ing “in sick­ness and in health” part of mar­riage vows, as did my mom, for my dad.

What can we do for the peo­ple of Haiti?? As well as send­ing pos­i­tive thoughts, any dona­tion to a legit­i­mate char­ity work­ing there will help. That is all many of us are phys­i­cally able to do — but it is something.

Count your blessings

Still Here Too