This saying has never been as true as this summer has proven. Many randomly bad things happen in life but none have ever come close to being as unfair and totally devastating as losing my brother Will to a physiological abnormality.
In my chosen career I study seemingly random patterns in nature and try to make sense of them. I know that if you can identify the simple rules that govern interactions in nature you can reproduce the most complex and beautiful patterns and understand how they work. But I never ask the question "why?" Why do those rules exist? Why are we here? Why does all this happen? The "why" I leave up to the more religious: people who need a reason for why we are here. Instead, as a scientist I ask how. How does it work? How does it happen? How does that thing exist as it is?
But the totally random nature of Will's death has left me gutted. All I can ask is why? Why him? Why not someone else? Why then? Why not when he was 50, or 60, or 100? I can understand the details of how... the physiology and the genetics and all that... but I can't understand why.
I guess it's because life's not fair. But it can be fair. In fact, it's been overly fair to me. Compared to most of the world's population, I have it pretty darn good. I was lucky enough to have a brother as thoughtful and protective and funny and fun and just plain good for 38 years. I am still lucky and truly grateful to have wonderful friends and a family that's loving and supportive and incredible in many ways. So I guess I will try to stop asking why and keep working on how. How do I put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward? How do I remember Will and all of his amazing qualities and all of my memories with him and not feel totally overwhelmed with loss? I don't know exactly how to do these things yet but I hope with time I will.
Rest in peace Will. You are deeply missed.
