Why?

Historians are inquisitive people. We ask questions and we try to answer them. Some questions are fairly mundane. Why did Washington commit so many troops to try to keep New York City, even though it was obviously a losing cause? Sometimes the questions are harder to answer. Why did so many apparently good, upstanding people commit treason in defense of slavery? Sometimes we can find the answers. Sometimes we can only guess. But we are always driven by questions. Why? How? Why? My own research tended to be more of the how questions. How did uranium mining and the building of Interstate 40 change Western New Mexico. How did uranium miners live? How did they die? The why questions were too difficult for me. I suppose that is why I have always had a difficult relationship with religion. I am the proto-typical bad New York Jew who grew up belonging to a synagogue but attended infrequently. I did not achieve Bar Mitzvah but I did reach confirmation. I found the confirmation classes interesting, but I was more attracted to the history lessons than the doctrinal ones. I can still sing “The Golden Age of Spain” song (which for Jews is the 8th to 13th centuries). But I’ve always had a touch of the mystical about me. I dreamed my wife before I met her. In my dream, I did not see her, but I knew I was dating the woman who had my friend David’s distinct grey Kelty frame pack with MCKEE written in large black Sharpie marker. After I met Lori, and fell for her, when she opened that fateful jar of pickles that magical summer in New Mexico, I was floored to learn that she had borrowed that same backpack for the summer. I never asked Why or How it happened that I dreamed her before meeting her. I just accepted it. The universe had plans for us. We fell in love immediately (well it took her a little longer, but not much). On our first official date, a wedding at the end of that wonderful summer, the bride asked us if we were the next wedding and we scoffed, but it must have been obvious even then. The universe had terrific plans for us. A short term move to Philadelphia turned into a permanent stay in a city that we loved deeply. I took a one-year high school teaching position and it turned into a career. We had the first of our two careflly planned children. Lori’s day job as a Realtor’s Assistant, became her career as she got a license. We had the second of our two carefully planned children. The universe gave us a third child despite all reasonable precautions, and we accepted him and loved him and never asked Why? Tonight, Lori left me. She left the kids. She left the earth. Because she is so young, the Medical Examiner will eventually tell us how she died. Or maybe they won’t. But I will never know why she left tonight, November 17th 2017. It’s not a question I can answer. I accept your thoughts and prayers. They ease my pain. The universe has been very good to me. I was lucky to born into a loving family, well cared for, my basic needs met and then some. Most people in the world, will never have what I have had. Most people in America will never have what I have. But the universe can be cruel sometimes. If the Hindus are right, I’ll perhaps meet Lori again in some new incarnation. If the Buddhists are right, her energy is nourishing the world in all the good things; if the Christians are right perhaps we’ll meet again in heaven. We Jews are unsure about heaven, but we are willing to entertain it, as with most things, as a possibility. I am not really concerned with the how of it all. The question I want answered is the unanswerable one: Why?