Is There A Reason For Everything?

Some of you may be tired of this series on grief and loss, but that's what's on my mind.  I was having lunch with my son on Saturday (after his wrestling team's victory that put them at 11-2 for the season - go High Point!), and we were talking about our mutual friend, Office T.  Son was saying that he was a little annoyed with the priest at the funeral, because of his stated view that everything happens for a reason, and that whatever happens is G-ds will.  It bothered my son, because how can anyone think there's a reason for the death of a 22 year old?  I can't say I disagree with him on that one.  I can't think of a greater purpose behind ending a life before it's really had a chance to start, or say, of taking away the father of two small children.  I can't think that a benevolent G-d would want that to happen.  I also don't think that's exactly what the priest meant.  Horrible things happen, and they seem to happen to really good people.  When we say that things happen for a reason, I don't think we're talking about Office T or my friend's husband dying from cancer.  I think we're talking about what happens to the rest of us because those people are in our lives.  We could curl up in a ball and pray the world goes away.  Most of us don't do that, at least not for long.  I think about Office T and my friend's husband, and I think of how they brought us all together.  Our love for them was our original commonality, but what we found as time went on was a community.  We depended, and still depend, on each other.  We shared the good and the bad, and the really bad. We quietly bore witness and supported each other in our grief.  We helped each other move on.  Office T and my friend's husband faced their diseases with a dignity and a strength that shamed us and made us want to emulate.  They reminded all of us that life is too short to gripe and do nothing.  They inspired us to....whimsy, to try something new, to not be so careful and afraid.  Otherwise, their lives and deaths would have had no meaning at all.  So we give it a meaning and a reason.
What about the Trenches?  Well, everything happens for a reason.  The reason is what you make of what happens to you.  Did the end of your marriage force you to think about the type of person to whom you are attracted?  Did it make you do something about it, or did you do nothing and made the same mistake again?  Did the end of your marriage make you think hard about the kind of life you'd been living and inspire you to do something else?  Did your custody fight make you think about the kind of parent you want to be, and become that parent?  I'm sure you lost friends and part of your community in your divorce, but did you seek out others?  Did they support and inspire you?  In other words, did this unpleasant and unhappy event create change in your life besides the obvious loss.  Was there a positive that came from the negative, or just a negative?  Did it happen for a reason?  Only you know.  Here in the Trenches.