Brutal

It's so difficult to stay upbeat all the time. Sometimes even when it is someone else's sadness, the feeling hits home. Every time I opened the home page of my company's Intranet site, for the past 2-3 weeks, a pop-up notice reminded me that "A colleague needs your urgent help to save her life. Please see 'Notice' section for further details." I had consistently ignored that plea, but it's been up for so long that I was compelled to check it out yesterday.

The notice informed me about a colleague of mine (whom I had never known) who was suffering from a rare case of brain tumour which had robbed her of 80% eyesight and control over her left side. Tragically she was also the sole earning member of her family as her brother is a student and her father retired. The expensive treatment costs had brought them to financial ruin and they needed support to continue doing little what they could. This was not a bus-stop where appeal leaflets were being handed out and promptly chucked away, suspicious of the authenticity of the appeal. This was for real with someone who worked in the building next to mine.

I will make my own contribution today but the question at the top of my mind is who makes the calls? That this person must suffer, or that person must die early, or that third person must skip through life without nary a care. Things are just so random and chaotic, totally beyond any kind of logic or justification. God's grand design is an alternative theory but it's hardly any comfort to the rational person. Why on earth should I or any one for that matter be part of a plan which I have zero control over? There are moments in this game of life when the whole circus seems pointless, a useless diversion before we meet our pre-determined fate. The really brutal thing is that we must always pick ourselves up and get on with the game. The show (tragedy, comedy, drama irrespective) must go on...