The Lemons of Life

I think that my title probably doesn’t really start to explain the sadness of strife of yesterdays events. But I can’t think of anything else right now, so that will have to suffice.

One year ago, on June 25th, Zach’s family lost a loved one. She was a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, a friend, a mentor- she was too young to go; too loved; too needed. There were 7 Ducheneaux kids. On that day, that number was decreased to 6. Three girls were born to Wayne and Regina, before a run of 4 boys- Zach is oldest of the four boys. Lisa, lost her life in a freak four wheeling accident- she’d gone out to check her cows, the four-wheeler flipped, and she died of internal injuries. Lisa was the middle girl and left behind 4 children and a husband. Lisa died on Lori’s birthday- Lori is the youngest girl. This wound is still raw; still healing. She’ll always be missed.

Yesterday, Lori, lost her son. Lori’s son was 10 or 11. He took his own life. For whatever senseless reason; whether or not he was unhappy isn’t known yet. But he appeared to be fine. He’d been at a family branding the day before- cutting up and being a his typical smart ass-self. He got up yesterday, took a shower, and went to get ready for breakfast. He never returned from his room. Could his actions have been a terrible prank gone awry? We will never know. Her little boy, Austin, was full of life, and ornery as they come. A prank isn’t beyond him. But the finality of this action must have surely been lost on him as he can’t have been old enough to grasp it. The family is full of mixed emotions to be sure- and there’s a lot of anger and other emotions. Anger at Lisa; anger at God; anger at life; anger at Austin for doing what he did. There’s the sorrow that someone so young is gone; young on both counts. There’s the sorrow that the family is still healing from one death, and now there’s more grief. They cannot, as it seems, catch a break.

I don’t know why I felt the need to share all this this morning. I guess it is because I am certain that all of life’s choices have a consequence. I also believe in God’s goodness and grace, but how do you make sense of that in a time like this? How do you believe that a good and gracious God, would allow Lisa to die? How do you believe that a good and gracious God would allow Austin to take his own life? Is it simply because we have the ability to make our own choices? Because God doesn’t want us to be His little robots? I do need to thank my dad for thinking clearly enough yesterday to give me some good advice- and that was a lesson for the kids involved in all of this- that our choices have consequences. And that those consequences should be weighed before choices are made. As such, I think that one of the things they can learn from this is to talk to people.

I probably rambled and this made no sense at all but I needed to get it out there.