My Dear Hemlock

by Tilly Dillehay

She believes she’s being insightful, that when she pauses a moment and asks that perfect, leading question to the sufferer, she’s doing her duty. But she doesn’t know how little life she brings to the truly innocent sufferer.

She would have to admit that it could happen to her. To admit that the “loving” Creator of the Universe may intentionally bring about suffering that wrecks the life you had and gives you a different sort of life—and that there isn’t anything you can do to prevent it—is more than the human can rationally handle.

Whatever the deepest desires of her heart are, these are the things she will most carefully erect systems to protect. I can’t admit that your loss is simply loss, she will say to the suffering friend, because if I do that, I open the door to the wild thought that, sometimes, things happen and there is no “explanation” in this life. It means I must really hope in another life.

She will never slip into doing something truly outrageous, like “weeping with those who weep.” By refusing to examine the possibility of innocent suffering among her friends—and by refusing to engage the Enemy in impassioned prayer on their behalf—she will also be increasingly filled with dread for the future.

She’ll also be increasingly hard-hearted when she does encounter the “sin behind the suffering” that you will encourage her to continually sniff out in other people’s lives.

That horrible moment when they have to find a narrative that fits it all together! And the fun we have, picking over the remains of their faith in a God who never does what you thought He’d agreed to!

She is wasting a good deal of time cooking and cleaning. She keeps reading the Enemy’s book. She incessantly prays and sometimes even sings, alone with her housework. She has, in fact, become a respectable

But now the delight creeps into other times and places as well. They persist in laughing together, over the children that used to often move them to mutual blame.

to sit quietly in a room together, more likely to laugh, more likely to sing.

How did you manage to pass over the entertainment of creating a woman who seeks to turn back a clock that won’t turn?

Death is never a real friend. I always say that the less the humans think of death, the better. Death instructs them when it is faced head-on. Only when it is skirted around can it be really beneficial. A human pretending she won’t die is a human who fears death.