The 18 year old daughter of a former co-worker died last Thursday, as a result of injuries she sustained in a very, very bad car accident a few days before Easter. The doctors did what they could, drilling hole after hole in her skull to relieve the pressure that kept building due to brain swelling, and cauterizing her spleen to stop internal bleeding (because she wasn't stable enough for surgery). The injuries were beyond their repair, though, and she died late in the afternoon on April 12, in her father's arms, after he and her estranged mother made the decision to shut off the life support.

I didn't really know her father while he worked at the Casa de Insurance, and I didn't even know he had a daughter until I heard about this accident. I find myself, though, unable to stop thinking about this tragic turn of events. I have cried and cried over this teenager I never met, and at the thought of the grief that her parents are now facing. How do you even begin to recover from something such as this?

I am a Christian. I go to church every week. I'm sure I don't read my Bible as much as I should, but I pray earnestly each night when I get into bed, for guidance and wisdom, for strength, for the safety and health of my son. But at times like this, I find myself wanting to rant and scream - How could YOU do this to these people? YOU call yourself loving? YOU call yourself compassionate? Where is the sense in something like this? According to her boyfriend (who was in the car) and the Highway patrolmen at the scene, she wasn't speeding, or talking on her cell phone, or fiddling with the radio. There was no evidence of alcohol or drugs in her system. She was just driving to school, slowed down to avoid an accident in the road ahead of her, and lost control on a patch of black ice on the road from rain the night before.

I think about things like this, and sometimes actually become physically ill. Because of the faulty wiring in my brain, or maybe just because I'm a parent, I'm always led to the thoughts of 'what if something like this happens to my son?', which most times brings me close to a panic attack.

I know that the will of God is not for me to know. I've seen 'The Lion King' and I understand the 'Circle of Life', and I realize that no one knows when it will be 'their time to go'. But I cannot, cannot reconcile in my head such senseless pain and suffering. There is no reason. There is no justification. There is only grief and pain and loss.

I will never understand or accept it.