Consolation

Trying to explain the death of a loved one is generally not a good idea. Grief is personal, emotional, while explanations are general - often generic - and attempt to be rational. (I say attempt because so often explanations fail the logic test.)

Still, we do have a rational component and at some level we want the universe to make sense - especially when it seems most senseless. Sometimes, then, death, while heart-rendering, doesn't disorient our minds or overly challenge our beliefs. For example, when an elderly parent passes away in his or her sleep, with the grief may be a sense of balance, almost gratitude - since death is inevitable, this at least was a life well lived, and we feel assured that it was only a passage, deserved and earned, to a better world. On the other hand, when an evil person dies, there is some satisfaction that, at least to some degree, there is a measure of justice even in this world.

There are other deaths that seem void of reason or shake our belief. And if they don't challenge us, require us to think deeply about faith - its reality and transformative nature - perhaps the belief itself is superficial. It's not just that one should "stand firm" - a solid wall can still be undermined, battered or demolished. The strongest faith demands questions, even doubts. When faced with the unanswerable, the response is two-fold: to nevertheless continue to examine, search, expect, even demand an answer and at the same time to strengthen one's faith - to experience more powerfully the presence of G-dliness. 

(By analogy, when a person G-d forbid has a life-threatening illness, yet the doctor assures the person that such-and-such a treatment will cure the disease, at the initial stage questions will be many but scattered, and acceptance of the doctor's expertise complete but with a drop of anxiety. As the process becomes more intense - the disease seems to be worsening (it's darkest before the dawn) and the treatment more difficult, the questions become more learned and sophisticated and the demands become more urgent. At the same time, the reliance on, trust in, the medical professionals becomes deeper, more intimate. Such is the nature of a life-altering experience.)

On the level of the soul, there are many explanations, but which one applies in the case that shocks or grieves us, is beyond the apprehension of all but a prophet. When a natural disaster strikes, taking this young life but sparing that, or G-d forbid a person, especially a young person, dies tragically, prematurely, who can know the Divine mission of that person's soul? It may be the soul descended from the heights of Heaven to perform a small, to us insignificant, act. The tying of a shoelace may reverberate in the Heavenly spheres, calling forth or revealing a level of G-dliness otherwise hidden or inaccessible. Who knows what a gesture, the presence, or mere existence of one person has done for the soul of another?