More death

Coincidences, big and little. Do they mean something? Or are they just that—coincidences? It's up to you to decide. All I'm trying to do is make you more aware of them—encourage you to start watching for them.

Here's a sad set of 'death comes in threes'.

A few months ago my daughter told me she had reconnected with an old college friend. I'll call her 'Mary'. They hadn't been close friends, but they were more than just acquaintances. They hadn't been in touch since college—many years. Facebook had done what Facebook is really good for, reconnecting people, and they had gone through the "what are you doing now" routine. Weeks later, my daughter got the news that Mary had committed suicide.

Not long after that there was news of another death.

My daughter is a teacher. About ten years ago she had "Ellis" in her fourth-grade classroom, and a couple of years later she taught his sister, "Alice". She became acquainted with Ellis and Alice's grandmother and great-grandmother, as did I, and we kept the friendship through the years. Ellis was a real handful back then and continued to be at odds with the establishment as he grew up. Then came the sad news. Ellis had committed suicide. He was only twenty-one years old.

My daughter said, "That's two suicides. Who'll be the third, I wonder?"

Within the month a close mutual friend of ours got the news. Her son had taken his life.

As sad as these deaths are, I can't help think that the saddest part is that they didn't realize they didn't get out of anything by ending their lives prematurely.

You see, life is like a classroom. You (and I) are here to learn something. What we have to learn—what we struggle with—is different for each of us. But whatever it is, we have to learn it. If we don't, we'll face the same challenge in our next lifetime. If you end your current life early, you'll have to start all over again from the beginning. Might as well buckle down and learn the lesson this time.

There's really no such thing as death, you see. We move from this plane of existence to another, back and forth, as we experience and learn. Whatever you struggle with is your lesson. Once you master it, it won't be hard again.

I wonder if our coincidences are clues to our lessons. Hmm…. I'll have to think about that.