Trying to understand why horrible things happen...
 

I just found out that my pregnant neighbor lost her baby. She was eight and a half months along, but there was some complication; they did an emergency c-section but the baby didn't make it.

I hardly know her, but I feel absolutely awful for her. She has two boys and this was going to be her little girl. They had the nursery all set up, which is going to be hell to come home to.

Nobody deserves this. The woman's mother came over to talk to us, and she said when she lost the baby she sat in the emergency room and held it for four hours.

I just needed to get it out somehow. I know horrible things happen every day, but I really just don't understand. I don't understand why we're thrown into this existence and expected to make sense of things that seem to have no purpose at all. What's the point of going through over eight months of a healthy pregnancy just to lose a baby? What's the point in a life being created that isn't even allowed to be born?

You and everyone else who has ever lived. This is what religion and philosophy attempt to answer, and the only satisfying answer you get will come from you.

My personal take on this is that things just happen; there is no meaning to them aside from what we assign after the fact.

I'm with inBOIL on this. "Why?" That is a difficult (if not impossible) question to answer, unlike who, what, where, when, and how.

Events occur, with or without reason. Life happens, and that often leads to the death and sorrow of innocents. The important thing is to focus on the positives and come to accept the negatives that you can't change.

My take: Life is a string of endlessly complex events set in motion by an infinite number of variables. Trying to understand it is meaningless. I find comfort in understanding that. That I can only control what is controllable and that killing myself over the unknowable is useless. I use to kill myself over crap I couldn't control until I realized I had a life to live.

When my father had his stroke I cried for a bit because it was overwhelming but then I took it in stride. I couldn't help that he had it. But I could make what could of been his last days perfect for him and for me.

Life for me, know, is a lot of that; being comfortable knowing that I know practically nothing but also having the confidence I need to fight tooth and nail for what I do know. That's how I understand and deal with horrible things.

Life isn't fair. It's just like that.

There is no inherent meaning to life. No order. No fate.

I suppose if you are the sort of person that believes in a religion, I would suggest prayer and the reading of whatever scripture your religion holds to as support in times like this. It's one of things that religion brings to people... apparent order out of seeming chaos.

Well, considering (my opinion that) there is no god, I think the answer is really quite simple. If there is no meaning, there doesn't need to be a strict set of rules to reach that meaning. While there are patterns in the world, it's still all pretty random as far as overall existence goes.

I agree with all who posted so far.

There is no rhyme or reason. This is perhaps one of the cruelest things about life. That things like this can just "happen" and have no explanation.

My sympathies to your neighbor. I can't imagine.

InBoil is right that this is the most difficult of all issues, and the only answer that will ever satisfy you will come from within.

I lost a really good friend to leukemia this past year, and I found myself asking all the same questions, feeling the same kind of sadness, frustration, regret, anger, and bewilderment that I see in your post. The fact that I was in my third year of rabbinical school, and am supposed to be learning what to say to people in moments of crisis and tragedy, made little difference. I had to find answers my own way, and what I eventually came to would probably not satisfy others-- nor would I say there is any "more objective" answer out there.

You just have to stick to learning and seeking for answers, and trust that things can't always suck....

there is no understanding....

there is just what is, and acceptance of what is.

Horrible things happen because good things happen. If nothing horrible happened, then how would you know when something good happened, and vice versa. It's the whole yin and yang philosophy.