Oh God

That Man saw something on TV lately about how when the earth heats up enough as it’s expected to do, a cloud of pollution (for lack of a better word) will encircle the globe causing natural condensation that will then cool the earth down. It’ll save the planet, allowing humanity to ride on. He was in a hotel in New York, lonely I like to think, and he told me he thought, “If this is true, there must be a God.”

That same day, I heard a story from my friend who works in the NICU. (Sometimes she unloads her tales to me, partly because she knows I crave the drama, and partly because her husband does not.)

Story goes: mother of a three week old baby wakes to find the baby in her bed, where she had nursed him all night, unresponsive. Infant rushed to the hospital and within little time, all the experts agree -- the baby is virtually dead, brain-dead, a vegetable. The mother believes she inadvertently smothered him, which may be the case, but the doctors mark it as SIDS. This woman suffered several miscarriages prior to this pregnancy, which was the result of IVF. This was her miracle, her healthy baby, her dream come true.

Justice? God? All I could think was if there is a God, what kind of crazy, unbearable lesson is trying to be taught here? No kind and loving God would allow this to happen. This is mean. Unfair.

My friend, the nurse, a believer, who said this was one of the worst things she has dealt with in her career, didn’t cry when she told me. I did. (She cries all the time about other stories I tell; she is never afraid to cry). I asked her, why? Why aren’t you crying? She said, I could help that woman that day for that minute in some miniscule way that makes me feel better; you can’t and that makes you feel worse.

If there is a God, she works in mysterious ways. And I am either too stupid or too smart to get it.