I Don't Know Why You Die, and the Mysteries of all Our Families

I Don't Know Why You Die, and the Mysteries of all Our Families

In this life there are all of us survivors that observe our fellow loved ones and acquaintances die. Many of these are mysterious deaths to us, and we are relatively close to them that pass on. We know some of them very well, some of them intimately.

Disease. Violence. Accident. Suicide. War. Catastrophe.

And yet, even with these labels and "reasons", the unknown mysteries abound.

A work colleague of mine passed away recently. She and her boyfriend were found in her Norfolk apartment about a week after they had stopped breathing. I can conjecture, but I do not know why.

I can tell you the names of others that I have known who ended their lives similarly. Not sure why, really. I have talked to their close friends and associates, heard their last letters at their funerals, seen the somber processions carrying their bodies out of the chapels in caskets...

I don't know why they died, at the end. In the end. Ultimately. Why did that happen?

A mystery. A mystery wrapped in an enigma surrounded by a puzzle. Or an enigma wrapped in a riddle. A seemingly unending unfinished story full of the x's that we cannot solve.

Mysterious. Unknown.

And these are those that we know! Supposedly.

What about all those mysterious names of my family tree, veering off left and write on the screen, deeper and deeper into the past, the sum of who you are now, but you have no clue about their personalities or lives. Well, a few of them maybe, these dead ancestors but as the decades and centuries ascend, or descend, the names become more and more curious.

Unknown, us.

Why did you die? Why did I live?

Why did that disease strike him and not me?

Why did that bullet catch her and not me?

Why did that typhoon kill them and not us?

Why did that truck kill her and not me?

Why did that bus crush that little boy and not this one?

Why, why, why?

How come?

My good friend growing up, Jake, had a rock band for a while when we were young called:

The Mysteries of Life

Now Mr. Smith is Professor Smith at prestigious Northwestern University in Chicago.

Is he or anyone else closer to knowing why certain people die sooner or later?

Quite a few religious folk claim to know some things. But even they know that they do not have all the answers, and concerning most of what we are discussing here? Mortality and lives that end on the earth.

Why did the Tunnel boy die? He was only 12.

Why did Ruby die? She was 96.

Why did Grandma die? She was 84.

Why did Rob die? He was 27.

Why did the Afghan fighter die?  He was 18.

Why did Amarea Ware die? She was only 23.

Why did Robert, why did Ben, why did all these other people die, and not me?

Why do I write this?

I write this and think these thoughts for all of us.  Because I really cannot tell you the answers, but I can tell you I care.

And God does care, and probably knows all, where physical death has less sting.