What is the point of it all?
Even as an adult, it is hard to answer that question when it is posed to you by your parent. What is the point of it all? What is this thing we call life? Why do we do it? Why are we here? To grow up, get jobs that pay the bills, find a partner, get married, buy a house, have babies, raise them, maybe travel a bit, die. I for one can tell you that you can be comfortably rattling along down that path and still jump the tracks to have everything thrown into disarray and questions of what next.
But what about those times when it’s the children who die before their parents? What’s the point then? A parent will hopefully do everything within their power to raise their child to the best of their abilities, give them everything that they need to succeed in life, protect them from any harm that comes their way, give them the skills to protect themselves when they face the big world alone. But what if that harm can’t be stopped, when it’s a random accident, a series of unstoppable events that result in a child dead and the parents and community mourning?
A part of me feels privileged at the fact that it’s only random tragedy that stains black. War, famine, pestilence, and death are usually far removed from our daily lives here in Canada. Parents expect their children to outlive them instead of regularly seeing them die in infancy or childhood. Parents here are not watching their children starve, unable to fill small rumbling tummies. Or their children being pulled into armies or gangs. Parents aren’t separated from their children by boarder guards as they try to flee to a land where life will hopefully be better where I live. Instead it’s a cruel twist of fate, of wet roads and squealing tires and a young life over too soon.
It doesn’t make it hurt less. Or make it less tragic. Or mean that one shouldn’t hurt and cry and grieve. To feel those emotions is what it is to be human. To feel. To love. To cry. To gather together with stories and open arms and wet faces.
So, what is the point of it all?
To love, to laugh, to cry, to feel. To gather experiences, both good and bad, happy and sad, and weave them together into a life. To gather stories and tales and adventures. To welcome and trust and love. To give. To give love. To give hope. To be open arms that give comfort and shelter. To make the world a little better, a little brighter then it was before. To make a community, a family, a home. To come together in times of tragedy and times of celebration. To feel. To remember.
Our world is plagued with so much ugliness and hate, and our purpose in life is to resist that darkness, that ugliness, that hate, and make our world a little bit better. To defend those who cannot defend themselves. To lend a helping hand to those in need. To be a shoulder to cry on and a listening ear. There are many things that are out of our control. We can prepare for them the best we can, and weather the storm of the unexpected, to be there to help and support each other once storm clouds have passed.
But we have to live. We have to love. We have to try to do better. We have to cry and remember.
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