Why?

I met K. 14 years ago, at church. I barely got to know her, when I heard through the grapevine that she and her then-husband were going to prison(embezzlment or something like that - they divorced while he was in prison). She got sent off to Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women. A year or so later, I heard she was being released early because she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. After the mastectomy and several rounds of chemo, she came back to church sporting a crew cut. Now a breast cancer survivor and a single parent, she decided to work with the youth at church -"God has put me here for a reason", she would say. Kids loved her. She became the regional youth director, in charge of all the youth camps at Hargis Retreat, etc. But that job doesn't pay very well, and she never could manage money, so she ended up filing for bankruptcy. She lost her apartment, and needed a place to live, so she came to live with us (in our barn apartment - she had no pride). Twice after she moved into the barn, we had to go pick her up after she wrecked her car - she was a terrible driver. A while after she moved in, her neck started to ache, and she learned that she had developed cancer in her cervical spine. More chemo, but she survived that, too. Then her parents died - in the span of about two weeks, she lost her mother, then her father.

She moved into her parents home, but that didn't work out. She wanted to be independent, so she got an apartment in Cahaba Heights, and worked as a church secretary, barely able to pay her bills. Earlier this year, she started losing weight, and this past summer, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer; it's been downhill ever since.

I never heard her complain about any of it - prison, divorce, bankruptcy, losing her parents, or cancer (three times). When I last sat down to talk with her, before it got really bad, she still laughed at my lame jokes. Three weeks ago, she insisted on going back to work - for an hour a day, which was all she could do. As of last week, she was still paying rent on her apartment, hoping she would be able to move back in, although she's lived with her daughter and son-in-law since August.

So I guess you could say she was an ex-con who had bad luck with men, who couldn't balance a checkbook, who "caught" cancer like some people catch colds, beloved by kids she shepherded at camp, a wonderful mother and mother-in-law, and a dear friend. Oh yeah - and an awful driver.

Watching her disintegrate in her hospital bed, the question I keep wrestling with is "Why?". I think she knew the answer:

"God has put me here for a reason" is what she would say.