"I guess God needed her more."
A friend of mine made that statement after the sudden, unexpected and tragic death of a family member. This family member was a cancer survivor. Her husband had died suddenly years before and the extended family most recently had been grieving the death of their father/grandfather/patriarch. She was at work on Thursday, in the hospital on Sunday and died on Wednesday. When above statement was made, "I guess God needed her more", I sat silently, unable to continue down that road.
Death is never easy, expected or unexpected. Those who find themselves in the midst of grief also find their own ways of coping with grief. Some ways make sense to others, some don't. There isn't any "right" way to grieve. We just get through the days, especially in the first few weeks, and eventually find some sort of peace.
Along my journey of grief, I have made peace with the emptiness, the sorrow, the tears that come so easily. I have made peace with my complete lack of understanding as to why and accepted that some questions are unanswerable. I still have the questions. I would still like answers. I simply have a tenuous acceptance with not knowing.
For some, though, the not knowing means that we need to give answers and "explain" God or explain God's intentions. So we give answers like "God needed them more", "God needed another angel in heaven", "God has a plan" and so on and so forth. Those words don't ring true to my ears. I can't believe that God would "need" the mother of 10 who just died more than her children ranging in ages from 20 to 2. I don't think that God needs another angel in heaven that much.
Sometimes there just isn't an explanation. Sometimes death, expected or unexpected, just doesn't make sense. We can try to give answers but the truth is we can't answer for God. I wish some people would just stop trying.
