It's been a rough few months,

if not for us personally, for many we hold dear.

A teen-aged son, a middle-aged

mother, an older father, a dad and granddad younger than myself; some

who languished, some who were gone in a flash ­ all leaving a void,

a longing. All missed sorely by someone who loved them.

But the irony is this: That

for every one who died, there was another who lived, whose family is convinced

God spared him or her.

That troubles me. Perhaps God

did. But what does this mean to the families who are sorrowing? That God

rejected their plea?

I cannot trust a God so arbitrary.

To those who take comfort in believing that God pulls strings and manipulates

every second of our lives, I will not take issue, but my trust is in a

God that set up certain irreversible laws of nature, of time and space,

of cause and effect, who then allows us the freedom to work within them.

When we choose not to, or when the laws of nature, of time and space,

of cause and effect run counter to life, God suffers with us. God does

not withhold love, does not turn away from us, does not leave us, does

not blame or accuse us.

This is grace, and this is

Easter's message.

Many of you were so kind as

to let me know that a column I did last month celebrating 45 years of

marriage meant a lot to you. I found it poignant that most of those who

called, wrote or stopped me in Kroger were people whose own marriages

had ended with the death, usually, of a spouse. "Usually," because

for some, the laughing, the bickering, the good memories and bad, had

ended with divorce or the devastation of disease.

Or in a blast of gunfire.

Given the week we are in, I've

been casting about for words that would cheer, would uplift, would heal

the pain of their stories. Too easy, too easy to say, "Look at the

Resurrection and be at peace again."

If God is just and fair, some

wonder, how could God plunge a brilliant, witty, productive grandmother

into the swirling mists of dementia? Was it God's idea of a joke, the

tumor's return a month after the surgeon declared, "We got it all"?

Did one husband pray harder

or live purer, that his wife is now well past the magic five years breast-cancer-free,

while the father of three youngsters watched their mother die?

Two sets of parents get the

call: "There's been an accident." Are those now praising God

for sparing their child somehow more deserving than the ones whose son

did not live?

The ancient stories of a man

murdered for his cockamamie claim to have the key to the Kingdom of God,

then leaving his tomb and walking with his friends once more ­ they

seem to mock the pain and heartache of the real world in which the dead

stay dead and the dying do not get well.

And yet. From Malia Bergstrom

come two stories worth sharing. I don't pretend they will make the pain

go away or even show the relevance of Easter. But heed them nonetheless.

Malia's mother is deep into

the nightmare of Alzheimer's, and is cared for by Malia's dad. Malia writes

that one evening at dinner her 11-year-old daughter Claire "remarked

that a good thing about Grandmommie being sick is that we see Papa being

so good to her. She said that she didn't know anyone well who had been

through hard times (the bliss of youth ...) to see how they respond.

"We are content, I must

tell you," Malia continues, "in the peace that God gives. There

are fates worse than this. [Mother] is loved and cared for, she is content

now ... and our children are seeing the grace of God lived out in my father's

life. We know her soul is kept with God. There are many deeper sorrows

than ours."

She went on to write about

her husband Chuck's cousin, Sheila, orphaned when she was about 10. "Sheila

has always been a zany, loving, open-hearted person, but didn't marry

until four or five years ago when she was well into her 40s. She married

an Irish ex-NYC police detective named Donal and they have been happy.

"About a year ago he was

diagnosed with apparently advanced prostate cancer, so she has been consulting

with Chuck [a physician] to help her navigate the stormy seas of the health

care system, and to get comfort in dealing with all the frightening blows

of cancer. ..."

Late one evening Sheila jotted

a note to her extended family, titled, "Husbands and Those Who Love

Them."

"They make you angry;

they make you mad; they make you sad and so confused and so rude. But

most of all they make you happy and make you feel so lucky to have them.

"They are the history

of your married life and all the happiness and strife in your life. ...

You can throw your hands up with exasperation and total confusion but

finally, like tonight with Donal and me, we are dancing in the kitchen.

"Dancing in the kitchen?

After a lengthy discussion, not always quiet, abou

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