Death is like that!

I often have gone through these questions several times inside me over the last few months since I lost my father in law about:

• Is God cruel for taking away the people dear to us?
• Even if someone has to go why does the person have to go through unbearable sickness and pain before it?
• Does God listen to prayers? Why do miracles not happen even after begging from Him? If everything has to happen as destined then why should one pray?
• What happens to an individual after he/she dies?

I have seen my husband and sister-in-law struggle with these questions every day of their lives for the last six months. To most of these questions i dont think there is a readymade rational answer atleast not that I can think of. SIL has gone to the extent of studying reams and reams on the net to find out about life after death but I guess her findings are inconclusive.

I think these questions are the cause for mental disquiet inside both of them currently; though I do understand that this all stems from their missing papa a lot. Since these questions are being asked by people I love so much somewhere I have been wondering about them. I am also asking myself as to why I did not ask these questions when I lost my near and dear ones. Is it because I did not love them enough? I believe it is also to do with how much acceptance one has of death as a part of life itself. I have had to see death at very close quarters when I was 5 and I lost my youngest uncle to a freak accident. I have a distinct memory of that day in my life. Death did not seem unreasonable or unfair or any of those things to me even on that day. May be I was too young to understand death itself. However I did know then that I will never see my uncle again and I was to say a "final good bye" to him...however I was fine.

Then I lost my nani...I was sad but not too affected by it yet again however my mom went into a depression for sometime. I also lost my mami who herself was quite young when she died and she left behind 3 kids who were too young the youngest being some 7-8 years. I guess when the family came back I was more in the mode of let us get life together. I think one death which affected me was my grandfather's since he was someone I looked upto in my life. However it came down to my wanting to emulate whatever he had done well in his life.

However these have been digressions. The important question is how should one help someone else arrive at answers to these questions because papa's suffering does not seem to be good enough answer.

I guess there are incidents in each of our lives at different points which make us question our entire value system and we have to answer all the questions that come up within us. These incidents change us in ways we would have never imagined..but I guess the key to move on is to learn to forgive and leave behind the anger and bitterness inside us....