Looking for Answers

Today the lifeless body of our manly outdoorsman friend, John, filled a proportionately slender casket surrounded by ribbon-wrapped flower bouquets.  His massive hands lay neatly folded across his barrel chest, and his facial expression looked much like one several weeks ago when he sat on our deck sipping herbal iced tea and chatting.  “Doc says I can’t go fishing for 6 weeks after surgery,” he’d said regretfully that day, confessing a reluctant need to sacrifice the rest of his summer to the recovery process.  His clear blue eyes seemed to overflow with various emotions. That memory seems so long ago now.

John’s bodily functions never woke up from the general anesthesia.  The surgery was “routine,” an abdominal hernia repair following a surgery last summer, and he was in excellent health for his 74 years.  Two and a half weeks later he was dead. 

At the funeral, his beautiful and vibrant wife of 55 years summarized well.  “It should never have happened.  He was so healthy.”

Following a surgery a year ago - another story in itself with its own set of questions - his body did the same thing.  That time his kidneys were slow to resume normal function, and it was necessary to surgically intervene to enable bowel movement and thus prevent death (that surgery was the cause of the hernia). So why was he given another general anesthesia this time?  Why take such a risk?  This is my question as one who once had abdominal surgery with an epidural rather than general anesthesia – a potentially safer option in a case like John’s.  Also, why did a plugged catheter go unnoticed until his extremities visibly swelled, toxins ravaged his body, and bacteria-laden fluid destroyed his lungs to the point that if he had survived he would have been invalided?  This is my question as one who has had five major surgeries after which the careful measurement of IV fluids and urine was regularly documented.  Why?  WHY?  The whys keep piling up, only to be met with deepening silence.

Can such unanswerable questions be resolved?  NO. Let them go, I tell myself.  LET THEM GO.  I cannot understand, nor should I expect to. Instead, I know to praise God even in the midst of sorrow and confusion, for HE IS the ultimate resource for questions of life and death and everything in-between. 

Still, in my humanness I struggle to find reason-based answers, but they continue to evade me.  Perhaps it is good to wrestle with my heart and seek more-than-superficial meaning to all of this. Then I am forced to my rightful place as a created creature learning to trust the Creator, even (perhaps especially) in the midst of pain and loss that only He can redeem.