Maureen Dowd, "Why, God?": I No Longer Ask

A little over thirty years ago, my life changed dramatically in terms of geography, occupation and social circle. I lost touch with most of my past, and then, recently, I was sent an e-mail providing a link to a video listing those from my high school who had died. I have long since passed the 50-yard line and have seen enough "death," much of it shocking, but these pictures of former friends haunted me, inasmuch as I was not there to say goodbye, and given that they had continued to live in my mind as young, happy and  beautiful.

Among those who had died was a picture of my first girlfriend.

My life has again undergone something of a metamorphosis, and today I am fortunate enough to be intimately working with two companies, one of which is seeking to find new medicines for cancer and autoimmune diseases, while the other is attempting to restore sight to persons blinded by retinal diseases. Often, I am overwhelmed by the complexity of life, yet amazed that in my limited lifetime such remarkable progress is being made to decode this miracle and offer hope to those afflicted with debilitating and often terminal ailments.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Why, God?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/opinion/dowd-why-god.html?ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd allows Father Kevin O’Neil to say a few words relating, inter alia, to the horrors experienced over the past month in Newtown and Webster. Father O’Neil writes:

"We are human and mortal. We will suffer and die. But how we are with one another in that suffering and dying makes all the difference as to whether God’s presence is felt or not and whether we are comforted or not."

Me? I don't know if God is a He, She, or, for that matter, a They.

Overwhelmed by my privileged view of the complexity of life, I accept my mortality and take comfort in Father O'Neil's words, notwithstanding my doubts concerning a hereafter. My own belief is that if I "live on," it will be through whatever decency I have been able to impart to my children and as a consequence of the love I have shared with those closest to me.

I also acknowledge the presence of unremitting hatred and evil experienced in Newtown and Webster, and, almost half a world away, in Damascus and Tehran.

And yes, I regret that I was not there some 20 years ago to say goodbye to that first girlfriend, whose laughter still rings in the recesses of my mind.