Earth Spirit

Since I was in Kindergarten to the moment of my confirmation, I was attending catechism on Monday evenings.  Learning stories from the bible, but not actually learning much about anything when it comes to faith and what you believe.  I was always fascinated by stories, but after a couple of years the classes became more of a punishment than anything.  It was like an extra hour of school every week only you didn’t feel like you learned anything.

Like school, they had parent teacher conferences.  Only in a group setting, with videos and stuff.  My mom talked to me about it once.  They showed her this video about this kid.  I couldn’t tell you the details, but long story short this child was hit by a semi-truck completely out of the blue.  My mom told me that she stayed back after all the parents left and asked the educator (a nun? a parishoner? a volunteer?) about the point of it all–why it had to be like that.  She had a dilemma: if God is all-powerful and all-good, where was God in that accident?  If God was all-good, he would’ve wanted to stop that accident but couldn’t.  If God is all-powerful, clearly he could’ve stopped that accident but chose not to.  The two key facets were in direct opposition.  She asked me what I thought.  After some thinking,  I figured that maybe God chose not to intervene because we have free will.  That that truck driver had a choice and chose poorly and although God could’ve forced him to change, then it would’ve been meaningless.  It made sense to my 8 year-old brain.  That idea stuck with me though.  God is present and leaves the actions of man to man and will do as much as he can to influence those changes but is ultimately not responsible.  I forgot about this conversation until recently when I had to ask “Where is God in all this?”

On March 23, my older brother, Jack, was in a car accident.  He was close to home, driving a route he knew very well at 1 in the morning in a deserted neighborhood.  We don’t know why it happened–if he had fallen asleep, or he was texting, or an animal ran out in front of him–but his car went off the road. He was going too fast.  His car hit the curb and went airborne, missing a tree, hitting a fire hydrant which spiraled the car into another tree.  That tree hit the driver’s side directly and the impact turned my brother’s brain into scrambled eggs.   He was rushed to hospital and put in intensive care.  I was at school 3 hours away when I got the call.  When I finally got there, after hours of praying while some one else drove, I got to the hospital.  A few hours later, he was declared brain-dead. He was still warm, still technically alive, heck, he even had some reflexive movement.  If he was kept on life support, he would live. But what they told us is that even if he woke up, a miracle in of itself, he wouldn’t be himself.  The impact totaled the part of the brain that controls personality and memory. He would never be able to speak again.   He would never be Jack again. And although my brother’s heart stopped on the 24th at 8am, he was dead long before that.

Why was my older brother dead at 22?  Why was dead now  just as things were looking the brightest they had ever been?  He had a serious girlfriend, he had returned to college and was enjoying his classes.  He was the happiest that anyone had ever seen him. And all of a sudden…poof.

The question kept coming back, “Where was God, and why did he see it fit to steal my brother from me?”  It’s all well and good to talk about the freedom of choice and that God can only do so much, but it’s not comforting to someone who suddenly lost a young relative.  What fatal choice did my brother make?  What could he have done differently?  This mentality puts the blame on the victim, on the other people and family.  It’s a cruel rationale and it didn’t make me feel better.  I heard some people said that “God needed a new angel”, but that’s not comforting at all.  If God needed a new angel, why did it have to be my brother?  If God needed a new angel and he took my brother for his own purposes, that almost makes him a monster.  It hurts to think that God needed my brother to die for his great big cosmic plan.  Maybe there is no reason. Maybe there is no great big cosmic force that leads us to be the best we can be.  Maybe we are, in fact, alone and God has simply let the world go to seed.

But I realize now where God was, even if I don’t know why.

God was there when the car crashed and somebody heard and called 911. He was there at the hospital when they got him stabilized.  He was in the waiting room–there must have been 20 people, not including my family, there for my brother.  The nurses, the Gift of Life people, the folks at the wake, the funeral.  God was there. And though I didn’t recognize it then, I see it now.  There was a purpose to my brother’s death.  When Jack donated his organs, he spread life.  His liver saved a 14 year old boy from death–that boy would’ve died if Jack had lived.  His kidneys went to a young woman and an older man.  His corneas gave another person sight.  His bone marrow will help treat little kids.  My brother’s life is being given to people we haven’t met.  Maybe that was his purpose.

I still miss him.  I still wish that he wasn’t dead.  I’d give up anything to have him back. And although I’m going through a difficult time with my faith right now and trying to reestablish what it is I believe in, there is some comfort in knowing that my brother’s organs make a difference.

God is somewhere. My brother is there too.