I’m excited about this week’s topic because I get to share the second-best life lesson I ever learned with you. Well, why don’t I give you the BEST life advice too, as long as I’m at it?
THE BEST was when I came home from school crying because people were bullying me for my weight. I looked up at my wise and impossibly ancient (he was maybe 40 at that time) father with tears in my eyes, yearning for guidance, and he gave me his sage counsel.
“Tell ‘em to kiss yer ass.”
I’m still not sure if he had been listening or if he thought I asked for the absolute quickest way to get suspended from Lutheran school, but I took his advice anyway, at least internally, and still do.
Now, the second-best life lesson came from my mother, and I hate to overshadow it with what is arguably my best story from real life ever, but it sets us up for what we really need to talk about now.
Flash forward to when I’m about 22 years old, and I find out that my Then-Father-in-Law has been diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually take him. Say what you will (oh, and I will) about my Ex, but he was adopted and raised by the most lovely people I’d ever met. Possibly the loveliest people in the known universe. His mother, Shiela, was a petite, charmingly dingy lady with an impossibly sweet nature and his father, Kermit (whose name was only one of the many awesome things about him) was brilliant, steady, and wise in all of the ways we genuinely need a father figure to be.
Sometime in the summer before I took my son and left my Ex, his father announced that the cancer that had been in remission since before I met him was back and, likely, incurable. It seemed so unfair, and I remember saying that to my mom. I literally remember asking her, “Why can bad things happen to good people while bad people seem to always go unpunished?”
And she said, very seriously, “We aren’t punished or rewarded for what we do here on earth, our reward is in heaven. Only God can reward or punish us.”
Notably, that was the first time I can remember Mom speaking theologically to me, and she made it count.
As usual, excellent advice was lost on a dumb kid’s brain because it took years for that to really sink in. There’s still this time in your life where everything is dramatic, right? And, don’t get me wrong, there were actually some pretty dramatic things that happened next.
If you’re lucky, though, you grow out of the phase of your and your friend’s lives where you find yourself riding around in a late-model used sedan - possibly someone’s mom’s car - trying to FIND someone else because YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY TO THEIR FACE.
Eventually, like I said, if you’re lucky, you move past that part of your life where you need to cast yourself as some kind of avenging angel, intent on making wrongdoers cower in their keds, and realize that sometimes the world is cruddy. People make dumb choices, there are storms and disease, a lot of things feel wrong, and you’re either going to accept those things with some kind of zen or fight against it forever.
And I’m almost there.
There are still pockets of resistance left in me that explode occasionally. My 13-year-old self can’t help but cross her arms, screw up her face, stomp her foot and shout “BUT THAT’S NOT FAIR!” from time to time. Just ask the people I work with… and live with… and encounter casually… You know what, just ask anybody, and they’ll tell you that I still fight that fight, even if it’s a little more subtle.
So how do I reconcile that?
Want to know something weird? Knowing I had this topic to write about I’ve suddenly seen messages everywhere telling me exactly how I could tackle it if I wanted to. Someone on Facebook literally posted a meme that said “Instead of asking ‘Why did this happen?’ ask ‘What can I learn?’” Sure, those kinds of memes are less-than-a-dime-a-dozen. (They’re actually free if you don’t mind giving Mark Zukerberg all of your personal information.) and they are very nice, very surface advice to give. We should try to learn from the things that hurt us.
But, you know what? Sometimes things just hurt. People hurt us, sometimes deliberately because their damagedness won’t let them do anything else. Men who have never smoked, drank, or even cursed meet their moment of grace because cancer has to take them.
Things we can’t control and don’t make sense and tear at our souls in a way that is probably going to scar us forever happen.
The truth is that there sometimes isn’t a lesson, not really. Sure, maybe you decide to say ‘I love You.’ more often or appreciate every moment and, hey, do ALL of that, but we can - probably should - learn those things without the world falling down around our ears. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that sometimes the only lesson is that good things happen to bad people too and we have to be ok knowing that.
Ugh. I hate leaving you on that note, so let me give you one more life lesson courtesy of my Mom, ok?
Flash forward now to about 5 years ago and I have to tell my mom some news that I know is going to change things for our family forever. I was scared to death about the future and even more afraid that, once she knew, she’d never forgive me for what I had to tell her. She had a hard time understanding what I was saying because I was crying and, of course, that meant I had to repeat words that felt, at the time, like the end of the world, several times.
When I finally got the words all out and she finally knew what they all meant, there was a long silence on the phone. Almost so long that I thought she had hung up.
Then she said, “It’s going to be okay.”
I was furious.
“How can you say that! Do you even understand what this all means???”
“Suzanne.”, she said calmly,”It’s going to be okay because it just is. Think of all we’ve been through, and no matter what happens, we make it okay because we have to.”
So there you go: Bad things happen to good people and we make it okay, because we have to.
Full disclosure, I’m the one who wanted this subject and I’m the one who can’t fricking write about it to save my life. This is the third time I’ve written this piece, the first two were both over 600 words in length. At this point I’ve got no choice but to be short and sweet and I apologize in advance. Why do good things happen to bad people? Because, well, shit happens. Be assured that good thing DO happen to GOOD people, but it seems like a lot of people that are generally, really despicable human beings seem to always fall ass over elbows into money, noteariaty, prosperity, and the like while the rest of the people have to scrape and claw and go without. I think the answer is really complex, but when you boil it down, it comes down to this: Good people aren’t willing to do the things that bad people do to get the things that bad people do. I assure you, I’m far from perfect and I’m no angel, but there’s stuff that people I know have done to get ahead that would turn your shit white. Embezzlement, cheating on taxes, illegally employing people, those are the “nicest” ones I’ll mention, because quite honestly, there are other things that I’ve witnessed or been told that is too vile to write on the internet. Let that sink in for a minute: too. Vile. To. Write. On. The . Internet.
So, to the good people out there who’re reading this, I want you to join me in a challenge. I believe that honesty, hard work, determination, kindness, being genuine with yourself and others can kick the crap outta lying, cheating and stealing. Now, I want to show THEM that it does. If you’re inclined, join me in putting our noses to the grindstone and being successful GOOD people., Our action will speak louder than our words ever can. So put you’re big pants on, dig in and get to work. We’re gonna kick their asses!!!....in a nice, polite, way.
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