Sometimes my only reason for writing is to try to explain something to myself. This is one of those times.

Healthcare has two rules:

1. People die
2. Doctors can’t change Rule 1

She told us it was called it MDS, Myelodysplastic Syndromes. Bone marrow failure disorder.

I heard someone say once that you are never really dead until nobody speaks your name anymore. Her name is Heather. Heather and her husband have three children that are the same age as ours.

We’ve known for five years that this day was coming. A part of me is crushed.

Most of me is rejoicing. Heather is the best person I ever met and, today she is with God. I know that for a fact because every time I was with Heather I saw God in her. Nobody could be the way Heather was simply by trying. There was something about Heather that was not of this world. Heather let God live through her, and His spirit was made visible through her life.

I also know that she is with God because it is the only explanation for why I feel so at peace with what happened today as I do. I am as comforted in her death as I was in her life because of the knowledge that what I believe is not in vain.

When someone dies, people utter conventional phrases that often seem trite. “She’s in a better place.” Or they ask, “Why her?” “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

I used to be someone who asked ‘why me?’ Today I ask, ‘why not.’ I find great comfort in knowing that I do not have to understand God in order to have God.

Many years ago I was reading the Old Testament book of Job and got to the part where Job is yelling at God demanding answers about why God is allowing all sorts of bad things happen to him. Instead of answering Job’s questions, God responds with questions of His own and demands that Job answer. Essentially, God asks Job, do you know how I do what I do? At one point He asks Job; do you know where I store the snow and the hail?

God is saying, when you can answer my questions, I will answer yours. Until then, I am God and you are not.

I find great comfort in knowing Heather’s God, and I am grateful that He allowed me to see Him in her.