Death is not accidental. We die when it is our time to die, no sooner, no later. Everything happens for a reason. We most often just don't understand the reason. These concepts are very difficult to comprehend when someone close to us is dying.

How can a child’s time be over when by our standards it hasn’t begun? How can a 30 year old mother or father raising young children have their work be finished? These and thousands of questions like them are what we ask when death comes to someone we love.

It will never be okay for my mother to die, no matter what our ages, it just won’t be okay. I need my mom. It will never be acceptable, under any circumstances, for anyone to die violently. How do we live with the unacceptable?

I believe we live until our work here is finished. Who is to say we haven’t done what we came here to do in 3 months, in 10 years or in 80 years. Personally, I figure I won’t be able to finish my work in 100 years. I will never be ready to die. Will anyone?

To believe that death is not accidental, that there comes a time when a person’s work on this planet is finished, no matter the age is an act of faith. Faith in the idea that I can only perceive so much of this vast experience called life and faith that most of what occurs round and about me I will not understand. Generally, the best I can do is have faith that all is as it should be. I also know that there is no comfort in any of these words when we are living with dying, death and grief.