Beginning Again--Again

As the long days at Mike Rowland’s bedside wore on, and the doctors’ prognosis’ gave Tammy no hope at all, eventually she was forced to make the most difficult decision anyone can have to make.

Mike’s memorial service was well attended. Friends, family and his racetrack “family” filled the space provided by Turfway Park. After the service, as Tammy was being comforted by hugs and condolences she was approached by the trainer of the horse that broken down, causing the spill. He pressed into her hand a check in the amount of $5,000 and moved on.

Tammy stared at the check in disbelief. Disbelief turned to anger. What exactly was this check supposed to represent? The price of her husband’s life? What a ridiculously inappropriate thing to do. She disposed of the check as if it was contaminated.

Weeks passed and turned to months. Every once in awhile Mark, still dealing with his own demons, would drop by to check on Tammy, and they would talk. Tammy would open up about her now up-ended life, and Mark would tell her of his efforts to regain control of his. They helped each other through this very difficult time.

Eventually, friendship turned to love and they married. They briefly left the racetrack—the scene of so much pain—and proceeded to make a living out in the “real world.”

But as happens more often than not with racetrackers, the world of racing soon sucked them right back in. That was right about the time that Jerry and I met them, as their horse transport business was getting underway.

DAILY NOTES: Why does God allow bad things happen to good people? I was first hit squarely between the eyes with this question by an old friend of mine from high school. This inherently good person (who was at that very moment in the middle of doing a wonderful thing for me) asked the aforementioned with what I can only describe as venom in her voice. This friend looks to most people like someone who has the world by the tail, but in truth throughout her life she’s dealt with some tough stuff.

“I mean really, Shon,” she practically sneered, “if God is so good, if there even is a God, why would he let people suffer? Why doesn’t he just stop all the bad stuff from happening?”

This is the same old dusty refrain sung by virtually every atheist or agnostic that I’ve crossed paths with over the years. Funny thing about atheists, in my experience—as sure as they are that God doesn’t exist, they can never seem to argue their position very convincingly. But I digress.

I wanted so desperately to provide an answer to that question that would make sense of everything—but all I could do was stammer and stutter, which produced little but a ‘see-I-told-you-so’ look from my friend. I didn’t want to get it wrong, so I didn’t say anything at all.

Flash forward a few years to last summer, when I myself was posing a similar question to my Creator. Like a whiney little kid, I found myself bargaining with God. “C’mon God,” I would say, “can’t you see how hard I’m trying here? Why are things getting harder instead of easier for us?”

The answer to that question was clearly “Because I love you, and you’re not nearly tough enough yet for what lies ahead.” Gulp.