Boxing Match With God

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. On the left we have a hapless human, MJM, and on the right we have the one and only, the Almighty God, or AG. Who will win the fight? Watch and see...

MJM, to AG: So let me cut to the chase: I hate you.

AG: What's wrong, my child?

MJM /hook to the chin/: Don't "my child" me! What do you think is wrong? She was so young.

AG: Your friend Tracye...

MJM: And so vibrant.

AG: Tracye.

MJM: Damn right /hook/hook/hook/, Tracye. So vibrant, so beautiful, so absolutely loved by so many. Did you see how many people mourned her at her funeral? There must have been 800, 900 or more.

AG: Yes.

MJM: Then maybe you also saw her heartbroken husband, Doug? Her tiny daughters, Abby, Julianne and Anne Renee?

AG: Yes.

MJM: /stiff jab/ Yes, yes, yes! How dare you? How dare you allow this to happen? Hodgkin's is supposed to have a 90% cure rate. What good could possibly come from cutting her down in two short years--just two? No bone marrow match, no successful chemo treatment. /uppercut/uppercut/hook/ DAMN you!

AG: There are things you don't understand; things you will never understand.

MJM: Blah, blah, blah. I've heard it all before. Like, when you took my one year old baby and gave her tuberous sclerosis complex; that was just rich. That was 2,000 epileptic seizures ago, let alone the surgeries and mental retardation.

AG: Yes, when she was diagnosed in 1993, you said you hated me then, too.

MJM: Yes, and I flipped you off when no one was looking. But believe me, that was nothing compared to how I feel today. Tracye was gentle, kind, funny, compassionate, a model wife and mother, a community leader. /stiff jab/ And yet you let murderers and terrorists live. What the hell is up with that? Are you even out there? Do you exist? /straight right/

AG: I have always existed. Especially during your suffering.

MJM: Oh don't tell me, is that when you carried me? Like Footprints In The Sand, God Said No, and a string of other feel-good, mindless essays that people like to forward on e-mail. Or for special needs parents, the Trip to Holland or Heaven's Very Special Child. Who writes this stuff? Let's not forget the ever-loving Tapestry analogy. I believed it when I was younger; I don't believe it anymore.

AG: Your devastation hurts me more than you know. And I have seen more than you have seen. Do you believe you are the only one who suffers? Consider the poor, the sick, the abused. Think of those who have suffered at the bloody hand of war throughout all of history.

MJM: Because you allow it! Why do we bother praying? We had so many prayer chains going for Tracye that they could have circled the earth 10 times. You tell us that whatever we ask for in your name, we will be given it. So we asked for one incredibly special human being to be spared. You didn't do it! /jab/jab/kick/ You could have and you didn't!

AG: But my will must be done for reasons you do not yet know. Trying to explain the reason for suffering and death is impossible, my child. As a friend said to you recently, it would be like trying to explain physics to a two-year-old.

MJM: Back to the Tapestry thing, right? /upper cut/kick/scrape/ It's not fair! I loved her! Hundreds, possibly thousands of people loved her. Her family loved her. They depended on her. She was always supposed to be there, with her vibrant spirit and sense of humor. She even laughed in the face of your crappy cancer. Called her chemo pole "Joel the Pole" and organized her daughters' birthday parties from her hospital bed. She did so much good. She was only 41! I'm seething with anger, with anguish. I used to be one of your biggest fans. What a sham you are.

AG: Do you remember Tracye's wake and funeral?

MJM: They were last week! /punch/uppercut/punch/ Of course I remember them!

AG: Think about the others who filled the pews of the church. All of them were hurting, too. But think about the collective warmth, love, and faith in that church.

MJM: Whatever!

AG: You felt it, didn't you? After days of crying and hating me...you felt it.

MJM: I suppose.

AG: I was there. I am always there. I cannot explain suffering to you while you are on earth. But I will always be there to comfort you.

MJM: Why won't you fight? Why do you just stand there? /kick/

AG: It's not the first time I've been hit, beaten and hated because people misunderstood me. It's not the first time I have chosen not to hit back. I once hung on a cross for you.

MJM: Not everyone believes that. A long time ago, I believed it without question. Now I don't know what to believe.

AG: This is what you were taught, and what you believe. And as you think of dying and the place I have prepared for you, the place where Tracye is now one with the angels, consider what her eulogist said at the altar. "When all of us enter Heaven," our first word will be "Oh."

MJM: Yes. She said "Oh...this is why my child died, Lord. Now I understand. Oh...this is why there was poverty, Lord. Oh...this is why Tracye went home to be with you."

AG: Exactly.

MJM: It hurts. My heart hurts. And I am so worried for her family.

AG: I know. But please try to remember something I said a long time ago. Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

MJM: Rest isn't an answer. But I won't get an answer right now, will I?

AG: No, but you will receive comfort. You prayed the morning of her death, and insisted that if I was going to take her, that I better "damned site take care of her family," right?

MJM: Yes.

AG: Almost immediately, you were contacted by widowers who experienced the same loss as Doug--one who was left with three daughters of his own to raise--yes?

MJM: Yes.

AG: Perhaps you could consider this an answered prayer.

MJM: [silence]
AG: Did you not receive kind and loving notes from friends and family, as well as prayers to lighten your heart?

MJM: My heart doesn't feel lightened right now.

AG: You may not feel it now, but your heart is healing. When your daughter was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis, and you denounced me that evening, what happened next?

MJM: I met an older man the next day, under a very unusual circumstance. Without prompting, he told me about his mentally retarded brother. How happy the brother was; how happy their family is. Shortly after that, I heard a song on the radio about how children like Mackenzie are a "blessing in disguise." I thought then that I felt your presence.

AG: When your mother died?

MJM: The light on her face...falling softly from the sun shining through the stained glass, before the internment. I felt your presence.

AG: Because I was there. Do you truly hate me, my child?

MJM: Yes. No. I don't know.

AG: You know, I stay in one place; I never leave. I am always here, and I wait for my children. They leave me, and they come back. I hope you will come back.

MJM: I just don't understand why you had to take her.

AG: I know. I ask that you trust me, that you remember the beautiful things about your friend and that you release your anger. You know she would do the same. She is so happy now. I can promise you that.

MJM: Well, I suppose I'll lay down my boxing gloves now. Hating someone takes a lot of energy. And, I suppose I do feel your presence...when I ask. When I try, and when my heart is open.

AG: I am here, and I will never leave. Remember to look for me, and you will find me. Then someday, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, you too will say "Oh."

In Loving Memory of Tracye Ford Sellers

Goodbye For Now