Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

by Kate Bowler

There is something so American about the “show-and-tell” of our daily lives. A big house means you work hard. A pretty wife means you must be rich. A subscription to The New York Times shows you must be smart. And when you’re not sure, there will always be bumper stickers to point out who has the honor roll student and who finished a marathon. America likes its shopping malls big and its churches even bigger, and every Starbucks in every lobby proves that Jesus cares about brewing the best.

They are teaching me the first lesson of my new cancer life—the first thing to go is pride.

The way that doctors are delicately picking up and handling the words “Stage Four” suggests that I am a spaghetti bowl of cancer.

And oddly, this reality has filled me with love. Love for my son. Love for my friends and family. Love for my husband, sitting beside me, squeezing my hand moments before the surgery.

“You can’t be happy unless you forgive them and set them aside. There is no way around it, buddy. You have to forgive.”

All these words I am tripping over are benedictions. Live unburdened. Live free. Live without forevers that don’t always come. These are my best hopes for you, that you press forward at last. I don’t know how to die, but I know how to press this crushing grief into hope, hope for them. It doesn’t sound much like goodbye. It sounds more like this: Fare thee well, my loves.

Most people are born into the tribe and, though science has not yet proven it, I’m pretty sure they are genetically predisposed to singing in four-part harmony and making thick-braided breads and homemade jam.

EVERY MORNING I LIVE the same moment. I can hear Zach over the baby monitor, squawking and mewing, and murmuring the first words, “Mama! Papa! Da-doo!” which, roughly translated, mean, “Mother, father, tractor, save me from this prison.”

I used to think that grief was about looking backward, old men saddled with regrets or young ones pondering should-haves. I see now that it is about eyes squinting through tears into an unbearable future. The world cannot be remade by the sheer force of love. A brutal world demands capitulation to what seems impossible—separation. Brokenness. An end without an ending.

A daughter who lives far from family. A friend who spends too much time at work. A wanderer but a type A planner. I wondered if I would ever be one, whole person. But now I am not hoping for completeness of any kind.

All I can think of are the logistics. One night I wake up almost every hour because my mind has seized on a horrible question: Wouldn’t it be a paperwork nightmare to move my body? To take me home?

Control is a drug, and we are all hooked, whether or not we believe in the prosperity gospel’s assurance that we can master the future with our words and attitudes.

“You’re a superhero. But I wish you didn’t have to be.”

A seventy-three-year-old woman named Trudy writes me to say that cancer can’t be nearly as terrible as learning she was adopted.

Even when I was still in the hospital, a neighbor came to the door and told my husband that everything happens for a reason. “I’d love to hear it,” he replied. “Pardon?” she said, startled. “The reason my wife is dying,” he said in that sweet and sour way he has, effectively ending the conversation as the neighbor stammered something and handed him a casserole.

What if everything is random? A woman who has left the faith for science writes: “I find it comforting to believe the universe is random, because then the God I believe in is no longer cruel.”

“I have no idea how this works, but I wish this for you as you move forward.”

I think the same thoughts again and again: Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.

I have seen the northern lights because my parents always woke up the whole house when the night sky was painted with color. I love the smell of clover and chamomile because my sister and I used to pick both on the way home from swimming lessons.

As adults, most do-gooders I know give up alcohol or spend more time in prayer. I’ve started swearing. And I mean it. I swear about cancer. I swear about dry croissants and coffee that cools too quickly. I swear about the budding ulcers in my mouth from intense chemotherapy. I swear about the refugee crisis in Europe. I swear before and after I receive test results even though I’m tremendously relieved that, so far, the tumors are still shrinking. I swear about Curious George whining to the Man in the Yellow Hat. I am relentless.

“I think aging is a fucking privilege,” I say squarely.

“Yes, yes, I’m okay. Except for about ten minutes a day, I’m okay.”

Plans are made. Plans come apart. New delights or tragedies pop up in their place. And nothing human or divine will map out this life, this life that has been more painful than I could have imagined. More beautiful than I could have imagined.

“Right. That’s the secret—don’t skip to the end,” I remind myself, sheepishly wiping my face on the sleeve of my sweater.

It’s another beautiful morning, and it’s time to yell with the pitch of the coffee grinder and make him French toast. I will die, yes, but not today.