The Tribune

A young man with a college degree, good job, solid marriage and a six-year-old daughter is about to start a gofundme page.

He should be sitting on top of the world but instead he is in a financial chokehold that is not his fault. In the past two years, he has lost both parents, had to bear funeral costs for first his mother and more recently his father. Expenses keep hitting him like a machine gun, barreling down a slide with no ground to stop the flow.

No matter how respected a professional he is, no matter how good a husband or father, this young man who many admire simply cannot make ends meet. He is swallowing his pride as he builds the courage to ask for help.

And he is among the lucky. He is educated, young, healthy, married with a roof over his head.

Another man I know works hard, but ever since his family home burned to the ground a few years ago, he has lived between a couch at a friend’s house and his car. Many times, the car breaks down or a tire is flat. He is trying to find a way this Christmas to buy gifts for his three children who live with their two mothers. All he wants to do is work hard and be a good father. He is willing to live in the car if it means his children will have food and clothing and books they need for school.

In Grand Bahama, there are still people living in cars as if they were in a state of suspended shock from Hurricane Dorian four years ago, desperate to find steady work, but hard put to find a way to get on with life in general.

There is nothing bad about any of these people – the young man whose expenses are dragging him down, the dad who will do anything, give up anything so his children are taken care of, the victims of Hurricane Dorian who cannot seem to move past the past.

Bad things happen to good people all the time.

It’s one of those realities that makes us ask, “If there is a God and God is good, why do innocent children suffer? If there is a God and God is good, why do those who lead a decent, clean life die of cancer?”

Bad things happen to good people -- it’s the reality that makes us question why a smaller nation falls victim to a land-grabbing superpower when its people and its government have abided by the rule of law and done everything a calmer world expects them to do or why drug dealers who poison others flourish.

Forty-plus years ago a conservative rabbi by the name of Harold Kushner tried to explain the theory in the classic book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. The book was a best-seller though not everyone bought Kushner’s explanation that God does what He/She can but cannot manage all the details of the world.

Things may just happen for no good reason at all.

It is only we search for the reason when reason may not be the important element. Is it really more important to understand why bad things happen to good people or to do our part to make things better?

I’m counting on the latter and I’m counting on you this holiday season.

As shopping and cooking and decorating our homes for the holidays reaches a feverish pitch, what are we doing as human beings to show true compassion, not just to give a gaily wrapped present to a family member, but to give of our hearts and our generosity to those who need it?

Are we staring at shelves of toys trying to figure out which one our child wants or do we decide instead to go into a grocery wholesaler or retailer and buy staples and non-perishables for someone in need? Did we remember to take a hot meal or a blanket to a homeless person? Did we sacrifice any one thing that we probably did not need anyway so we could do one more thing for someone who needs a helping hand?

This is the time of year when everyone’s emotions run the gamut – happiness is happier, sadness more poignant. Depression thrives during what is supposed to be the happiest of holidays. Missing loved ones who lost their lives to illness this year or leaving an empty chair for someone who cannot be present can cause such ache that the heart feels as though it will break in two.

The difference between joy and sadness feels more pronounced, the need to help those who are struggling feels a little more urgent.

It matters not why bad things happen to good people. What matters is what we do as individuals to make it better for at least one person this holiday season. Just one person. Multiply that by a dozen people and if we each do that little bit, reach out, help someone, help a few more, then truly we will know the spirit of the holidays for it is not about what we get but about what we give, especially to those good people that bad things happen to and it’s not their fault.