Very Little Time in the Middle Lately

47 years in, I had become persuaded that most of our time is spent somewhere in between the mountaintop experiences and those in the valley of shadows. Not so much lately. Small things don't seem to happen in my current congregation. Just a few weeks ago one of the great disciples in our church seemed clearly to have a heart attack on a Friday morning. After all of the appropriate care and testing was extended, they discovered that she had a massively pinched nerve. No fun, but, blessedly, no heart attack. That led into the time when Joshua (see previous posts) was diagnosed, and during his hospitalization, his dad suffered his second detached retina in a month. As previously shared, Joshua's results were spectacular, and his dad reports vision that is back to the level he had before all of this came about.
Then came Friday night's call. My father was on the phone. He wanted me to go to Jackson with him. It was about 9 pm. Jason had died.
Jason was the second son of my cousin Billy. Billy was about 12 when his dad dropped dead in their front yard from a massive heart attack. He and his two brothers and three sisters lived through pretty much the worst thing that can happen to kids: the death of a parent. Now, in middle age, Billy and his wife, Karen, are living through the nightmare of every parent. Jason was 30, a husband and father, son and friend, and one of those guys who always made everybody in the room happy that they had seen him. Hundred thousand watt smile, life of the party, always a joke or a stunt of some sort in progress.
He was at work. Jason operated the crane at a steel plant in Jackson. It was shift change, and the man he was to relieve saw him come in and climb up. He saw him walking the gangway toward the cab. He never got there. He fell 40 to 45 feet, and did not survive that fall.
Now, a young mother is a widow, her 4 year old autistic son has no father, her 9 year old daughter lost her stepdad, Philip and Lindsay have lost their brother, and Billy and Karen are grieving their boy.
It isn't supposed to go this way.
I'm spending my time participating in the grumbling tradition of our faith. I expect to do a good bit more of it over these next days. At times like this, I want to take my copy of Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, hunt Rabbi Kushner down, and whack him over the head with it.
I'm longing for some of those boring days in between the mountaintop and the valley of shadows. They look awfully good right now.