Resolutions Interrupted

I had it in my mind that I was going to come online and type out a list of goals/hopes for 2012, however, some news I received via Facebook from my mom changed my mind.

A close family friend lost her battle to cancer...they diagnosed her less than a year ago - by the time they found it it had fused into her kidneys and spread to her bones.  I grew up with her three children.  It saddens me how young she was, and how treatment wasn't an option because the cancer was found so late.  It was a cancer that had been growing for 10-15 years without any symptoms.  She won't get to see her two grandchildren grow up (and they are too young to remember her), she won't see her just married son have children, and she won't see her youngest even get married.  Her husband must be lost, as they were always inseparable.

My mom has been going to their home lately and helping take care of her...her tumor had grown so big that she began to look pregnant.

In June, she attended my wedding.  She wasn't able to go to the reception, but I didn't mind.  She apologized to me at her son's wedding 3 weeks later, but I told her that it wasn't important and that I was glad to see her.  Within the time of my wedding and her son's wedding she had become much more skeletal...as she was losing weight rapidly.  You could tell that she was serious and determined as she walked down the aisle at her son's wedding - it was taking a great deal of strength.  She wanted to do the 'Mother/Son' dance, but she was too sick by the time of the reception that she had to go lay down in her hotel room.  Can you imagine being so weak/sick that you can't muster the strength to dance one song with your child at their wedding?  You could tell that her husband was struggling to keep the mood light and happy for his son's wedding while his own heart was breaking inside and aching to be with his ailing wife.

My hometown is small, and the loss of this woman will be felt greatly.  The magnitude of her death is somewhat overwhelming to me.  I've known since my wedding that she would lose her battle, but it doesn't make it any easier when it comes.  I ache for her, I ache for her children and my friends, I ache for her husband.  I grew up with these people!  I went to school with them, my dad dropped us off at school together, We played tag, dodge ball, and Monopoly in the summers, I swam with them almost every weekend in the summer, I played hide and seek on their property with their kids, we roasted marshmallows and had cookouts, we spent New Years Eve's  and Fourth of July's together playing games and shooting fireworks...  Such a beautiful lady - a gorgeous lady - inside and out - withered away to nothing.  It seems cliche to say that "It's not fair", but honestly it isn't.

Why does it seem like such lovely, sweet, kind, caring people always end up meeting such tragic ends?  Does God need them back?  What purpose does it serve?  What good could possibly come of it?  Why would God want to harm her husband, children, and friends by taking her away in such a painful and quick fashion?

One day, not in this life of course, I hope to understand the reasons why.