Bad Things Happening to Good People

I was extremely close to both of my grandparents growing up, and my grandpa was my everything. We had an unbreakable bond. He was my confidant, my mentor, the person I was accountable to, and the only person in my life who never yelled at me…even when I acted like the worlds biggest brat. He truly strove to love unconditionally because God loved him unconditionally.

During the winter break of my freshman year of college my grandpa was diagnosed with a very aggressive stage 4 cancerous tumor in his liver. He died in early March that year. To make things more complicated I got pregnant in January and my parents had just moved to Colorado for a new job. In the months that followed I got married and we moved to Colorado to be closer to my parents and my grandma who had moved in with them. And over the next four years my son and I survived the abusive situation in our home before I finally had the courage and support to leave.

I tell you this because it was my dark night of the soul, a time I didn’t think I could physically endure anything else. I remember sitting on my bed sobbing and crying out to God asking, why me? Why us? Because this didn’t just happen to me, but also to my grandma and my dad and the rest of our family. But my grandparents had endured great pain in their lives…so maybe I could too.

My grandpa was a young 72 when he got sick. He did his calisthenics, or exercises, every morning. He didn’t drink or smoke. He was physically active and lived a healthy lifestyle. On top of that my grandpa was an amazing person. He went out of his way to help others. And despite having plenty of reason, he never complained about anything. You see, he experienced some great suffering during his life. He survived being a ball turret gunner on a B-17 in WWII, though loosing many friends and witnessing great atrocities. He was very close to his mother and soon after he returned home from the war she died. After marrying, he and his wife adopted two children, and while the youngest was just a toddler his wife died, leaving him to raise their children on his own while working full time. At 40 years old, as a single dad he packed up his two children and moved from Indiana to California to be near his sister and her family. It was there that he met my grandma, who just happened to be the best friend of his sister.

My grandma was just 8-yrs-old when her home became too unsafe for her to stay. She moved to a small studio apartment next door to her aunt. At the age of 12 she had also taken in her cousin to save her from an abusive home. At the age of 15 a handsome young soldier walked into her aunt’s diner where my grandma worked. By 16 she married that soldier and six months after her 18th birthday they had my dad. Two years later her husband died, leaving her a widow and single mother at the age of 20. Four years later she met and married another kind man and four years after that he died suddenly while she was packing their home to move to California. So at the age of 32 she had been widowed twice and was a single mom living in California near her best friend and her family. That is when she met my grandpa.

For the most part life was good for them, but they had both already endured so much. And even so they were the kindest and most open people you would want to meet. They always had room for someone who needed a place to live or a hot meal. They were the gathering place for all of their children’s friends and, eventually, families. Then in the early 1980’s my adult uncle went missing for nearly a decade. They hired detectives all over the United States to find him, and despite never getting a lead they didn’t give up hope or become bitter. They simply endured and gave thanks to God for all they did have. When my uncle called out of the blue my grandparents didn’t resent him for going away, they were just grateful that he was safe and back in their lives.

Growing up, I never understood it when my grandpa would tell me that God uses our hardest and most painful experiences to make the world a better place. When I would ask him why God let bad things happen to good people he would tell me that God doesn’t do that, but that God does make flowers bloom from a forest ravaged by wildfires. He told me that we have the choice to trust in God and be ready to help others, or we could let our anger build up and make us bitter. So when I found myself in that dark night of the soul I was leaning more toward the anger and bitterness.