Life is Not Fair, Revisited

[MountainDon]

I've been feeling very down the past couple days.

Marine Sgt. Bradley L. Page, son of a dance club member/friend survived 2 tours of duty in Iraq, only to be killed in a motorcycle accident here at home. He was engaged and looking forward to having children.

I'm not sure why, but this has affected me a lot. I didn't even know 'B' as he was known; I guess I feel for his Mom and Dad. Parents are not supposed to bury their children.

Maybe posting will help. 

[Ernest T. Bass]

Sorry to hear that; I'll keep him in my prayers. We had a young man die in a motorcycle accident around here not too long ago...

[Sassy]

That is sad.

I just went to the memorial service of my sister-in-law's brother - he was only 51 y/o, former Marine.  He'd been on dialysis for over 20 yrs and developed brain tumors this past year.  He worked full time up to a couple years ago.  We know he is better off, he was a Christian, but it still doesn't make it any easier for the family.  I felt so bad for my SIL.  She lost her younger brother to a scuba diving accident several years ago.  Then her mom lost an eye last year because of a tumor behind it.  Her dad couldn't even attend the memorial as he was in Stanford hospital seriously ill.  He had throat cancer several years ago & ended up with a permanent trach.  Anyway, a couple months ago he was diagnosed with pneumonia & the doc he went to kept giving him antibiotics & never did a chest xray.  My SIL called my sister who is a nurse practitioner & told her they thought that he had inhaled a piece of his trach but the doc had never ordered an xray.  Anyway, they ended up going to my sister, she ordered the xray, the radiologist called & told her everything was fine.  My sister asked her if she would look at the xray again, that she suspected a foreign body (FB) in the lung.  Sure enough, the radiologist noticed it when she reread the films    So he went to Stanford where they did surgery.  The FB was embedded in the lung tissue by then so when they removed it, lots of damage was done to the lung & he ended up bleeding a lot.  He was on a ventilator a couple weeks.  Then they took him to surgery again due to all the blood clots & more damaged lung tissue & removed a 2nd lobe.  He came home & was doing really well.  He's someone who always has to be active, so of course he was doing too much before he had recovered enough.  He was also taking his son to dialysis freq.  Tony Jr had contracted MRSA (methycillin resistant staph) & Tony Sr must have gotten it into his lungs.  Anyway, Tony Sr was in hospital when they had the memorial service.  Losing your child is bad enough, not to be able to go to the memorial service is even worse & then to for it to be the 2nd son - my SIL is the only surviving sibling.  (they had already posted the obituary notice & didn't feel like they could change the date of the service)

Oh, & to top this off, when Tony Sr had his 1st surgery for the throat cancer, he was at Stanford in San Francisco.  My brother & SIL were there.  That is when the last big earthquake hit SF.  Tony Sr was in the middle of surgery.  Talk about life not being fair...  and then my SIL was riding one of her horses when it got spooked, her hand was caught in the rein & she ended up losing a finger a few years ago.  It seems like one thing after another has happened to her family.  And they are all wonderful people.

[Ernest T. Bass]

I can't even imagine how hard all that must be... God must like them. Like Mother Theresa once said in a time of adversity, "Lord, if this is how you treat your friends it's no wonder you have so few."

[peternap]

I'm sorry Don!

Who knows why some things move us...When I see a death like that, I first feel for the parents then think how hard it would be to lose my son.

[StinkerBell]

Life is not fair nor could it ever be fair.
Faith, faith for me is what makes life events more tolerable.
I feel for this mans family and appreciate his service for me and this country.
I also wish I had some great words to say that would make you cheer up and feel less bummed out.

"Faith starts out before we know how it is going to turn out"

<hug>

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

The only way I can deal with it is to take it to the one who gave up his perfect son to a brutal and horrific death so that we could live.  No, it is not fair.  I can understand what you mean about not understanding why it is bothering you so much since you didn't really know the son... I still remember when I was younger, probably just beginning high school, a distant cousin and her husband divorced.  These were people I hardly ever saw... usually just at Easter and the family reunion, so twice a year, and I really wasn't close to them, but their divorce bothered me as much if not more than my own parents' divorce.  To this day, I don't understand why.  (Yes, I realize death and divorce aren't the same thing, though sometimes they feel like it.... it is just weird how sometimes things affect you when you don't expect it.)

[Dog]

Don sorry this is hitting you so hard. Life isn't fair. It's simply a challenge.

A few weeks ago a young man killed himself by turning over his car while drag racing with his best friend. He was only 22. He injured 2 young woman who were traveling in the opposite direction. I came upon the scene shortly after this happened. Med flights etc...if I had finished up what I was doing 15 minutes earlier that could have been me. It was late and I travel that road all the time. My heart went out to this young mans family and his friends.

The saddest point to all this is...

The local community went into outrage for a few days after this took place. It's understandable the drag racing debate, but people started posting evil comments on the local paper website that this kid got what he deserved. Even though people posted, please stop, his family is reading this, some felt the need to keep spewing hate towards this kid. It was awful.

Life is hard and it's not fair.  It's hard to not feel when we see something so tragic up close. Don, your heart is in the right place.