Why Love Matters

For about a year now I've been dealing with a family situation which, to put it mildly, upsets me, angers me, frustrates me, and saddens me. I can't give you the specific details nor do I want to sullen this blog with that kind of negative energy. Instead, I'm going to explain (maybe for you, but mostly for me) what is just so hard to bear about this.

Actually, the "what's had to bear" part is easy to work out: I just don't understand it. My emotions about this stem from a simple concept - I cannot, no matter how hard I try, see a reason or an explanation for the situation. Not a logical one in any case.

I just don't get it. And for me, a clever thinking person, NOT getting something is not easy.

I don't understand how people with similar upbringing can have such different core values. I don't understand how a single, unfair act of God (or whoever) can end up causing way more grief than is justified by that single act. I don't understand people who cannot accept that sometimes, bad things happen FOR NO REAL REASON.  I don't understand what they are hoping to achieve by their actions. I don't understand why, to them, what they are doing has more value than preserving the lessons and values they were raised by.  I don't understand the deliberate causing of pain.

I don't understand not being able to see - or at least have a decent guess at - that the consequences of one's actions will be far, far longer lasting and way more damaging than whatever victory they think they will get. And that the victory, when and if it comes, will be hollow.

Most of all I don't understand how others don't see this simple truth: no amount of hoping, wishing, begging, behaving well or behaving poorly, making bargains with god, or looking for some sort of concrete answer as to why these things happen will bring people back.

One they're gone, they're gone.

As much as that SUCKS.
As much as you wish it was different.
As much as you would give anything - not even almost anything, just anything at all - to turn back time and make the outcome different.
As long as you search for an answer (and if you find one or if you don't), this basic thing will never change: once they're gone, they're gone.


But here is what I DO understand: that grief can change people. That grief can be the cause of mental illness. That those with a mental illness are not acting in their normal capacity. That the disease they are dealing with is bigger than they are, does not define who they are, and that they are not at fault for being ill.

Once you're sick, you're sick - and that's as unfair and random as the thing which made that happen in the first place. Maybe more so because, in the long run, it hurts way more people and has much further-reaching consequences.

That I happen to have to watch this - destruction of a human and of a family - take place is something I don't understand, either. So while I DO technically speaking have a reason for it - that reason being mental illness - I'm struggling to accept that, especially weighed against all the other things I don't understand.

Maybe I need to stop trying to understand, and instead concentrate on my skills of strength, healing, love and patience.

So with that in mind - do your worst, Voldemort. Because even Draco learned that that the only thing which survives in times of great darkness -  is love.