Thursday, June 5, 2014

The Myth of Fairness

Tonight my sister tearfully expressed her pain over my husband Michael's advanced stage cancer. She said, "It's not fair." I thought about it for a moment but all that came to mind were little children starving in Africa with flies in their eyes. Next on the inner movie screen were visions of political prisoners wasting away in cold cells with no food and battered bodies for the crime of nothing.

I don't know why a smart, talented, loving man has discovered his body to be filled with tumors. I don't know why my family might, and I say might, be left without his golden presence sitting at the head of the table for our weekly family dinners. 

Maybe some of those kids in Africa will be rescued by an international aid organization. Maybe those prisoners wasting away in a far away province will be pardoned. Maybe my husband's cancer can be beaten back with a miracle drug.

But fair? Nothing is fair except rules governing games like football, basketball, soccer and such, where there is foul play and fair play. In the real world, fate and bad luck (or good luck) are more likely to have the upper hand.




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