#4: I believe ...

I Believe Audio

My uncle Manuel died around the time I was starting my seventh grade year.

  My dad came home one morning while I was watching t.v with my mom in the living room. His footsteps sounded normal, and his jingling keys sounded normal too, but when I turned to him to say “Hi” , he didn't look normal. His eyes were bloodshot red and his breathing was a lot more labored and my heart instantly dropped to my stomach. I had no idea what was wrong but I knew it had to be bad if my dad was crying. He never cried.  He came over to the couch I was laying on and sat down right in front of me and I immediately sat up, just waiting to hear what he had to say. 

“Your uncle Manuel, he uh, he didn't quite make it through the night.” 

And I just sat there, staring at him, waiting for a, ”Just kidding” or, “But now he’s at the hospital and they’ve got him stable.” , or anything else really. That never came, obviously , but what he did say hit me like a freight train. 

“We’re going to be okay though, experiences like this are part of the grand scheme of things. Things always happen for a reason.” 

Right there, that's what I believe in. Not that things always happen for a reason and that everything is part of some bigger picture but, something derivative of that.

I believe that people only ever say, “Things happen for a reason, it’s all part of something bigger.”, when something bad happens. 

You never hear it when someone wins an award, you hear, “Congratulations! I knew you could do it!”.

You don’t hear it when someone has a baby, you hear, “ Wow, im so happy for you. They’re beautiful.”

You don’t hear it when someone gets married, you hear,” I wish you a long and happy marriage. I hope you have the time of your lives together.” 

You don’t hear it when someone gets into college or uni. , you hear, “ Thats such a big step! Its such a good school, you're going to do amazing things!”

You do hear it,  though , when you don’t win the award. 

You hear it when you lose the baby. 

You hear it after the divorce. 

You hear it when you don’t get into college. 

What makes me so mad about it is, it's such horrible justification. It's a sorry excuse for comfort, it's a default reaction. As expected as the sun coming up in the morning, or your hair drying after you get out of the shower. You know its coming before it even leaves the other person’s lips, and you're already bobbing your head up and down by the time they start to say it. 

I'm not asking for people to come up with a new default reaction, I’m not asking for  people to scream and cry when something bad happens to me. I'm just saying, I know things happen for a reason, I know it's part of some big picture, and I know it's all part of life. 

I know. I know. I know, and that's fine.