Life generally treats me good, but sometimes life makes me both sad and incredibly angry.
Case in point; last week I learned about the passing of a distant relative. I shall refrain from details, name, age or even gender in order to spare the family any more grief.
While I know that all life has value, I sometimes wonder why those who are good of heart, or young, or real leaders in life die, while others who are of no value to anyone except one or two people who frantically hope their loved one will turn their life around, remain in this world, the walking dead.
I know there are no answers to that, even though I have searched high and low for some semblance of understanding, and yet I can’t help feel a burning anger at the senseless passing of those we love, especially those who are taken away before his or her time.
The other day I was walking down Columbia Avenue when a young woman (at least I think she was young, despite missing several teeth and sporting a blank and vacant face) approached me. She had some sort of weird contraption wrapped around her neck, across her cheek and over her head. I think it was her fashion statement, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.
It was hard to tell if she was 25 or 55. She had definitely wrung every bit of life out of life. Her eyes had no depth to them; there was no soul behind those dead eyes.
“Can I have a cigarette?” she asked.
“No,” was my short reply. The woman made me uneasy and it was obvious that drugs had stolen every bit of life and dreams from her.
Then, she got right into my face and said in a very threatening tone, “I said can I have a cigarette!”
Anyone who knows me knows that even though I am 59, and overweight, I don’t tolerate anyone getting in my face – ever.
I crossed my arms, pulled myself up to my full five-foot-nine inches and ever-so-gently leaned toward her and said, in the quietest voice I could muster, “I told you no.”
I could smell death on her. I really could. She smelled old and used up. The stench of drugs eating at her body and brain was disgusting. The odor of helplessness and giving up was strong and evident.
She walked away, the whole time talking to herself – a series of disjointed thoughts which made no sense to me.
As she was walking away she shouted, “I need my methadone!” and then walked back to the bus stop from whence she came and proceeded to verbally accost everyone who had the misfortune to pass her by.
I did feel sorry for her. I wanted to find some miraculous cure which would return her to the little girl someone once loved and knew. I wanted to magically wipe away the pain which would drive a person to turn to the horrific and deadly life of drugs. But I knew there was no cure and as I walked on I shuddered at the thought of the life this woman has led and the likely outcome of that life lived.
That was my sad lesson in “Life Isn’t Fair.”
Life isn’t fair; it can sometimes be a decievious and fickle master. One minute you are basking in your comfort zone and in the next second you are left pondering life’s cruel twists and turns. But that’s life, I guess.
You need to roll with the punches and celebrate life when life is being fair. And when it isn’t being fair you need to get angry and fight back until all things in your world are right once again.
To all of those who are currently in the life isn’t fair stage, I wish you peace and comfort.