Paul Schwartzmyer   St. Peter's, Eggerstville

Mondays are very busy in pharmacies, and mine is no exception. Ten percent of my business for the whole week arrives between 8:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. on a typical Monday. So when the phone rang at 1:50 p.m. on this particular Monday . . .

I was beat. My shift was due to end. I was ready to go home.

"Paul," the voice on the phone said, "This is Melissa from the Jewish Center. My son is sick and I was wondering if you could sub for my classes tomorrow?"

I am a part time fitness instructor at the Jewish Center. Melissa is one of the other instructors there.

"Sure, Melissa," I answered. 

She sounded rather chipper, so I assumed her son had an earache of another typical illness four-year-olds come down with. Certainly nothing in our conversation indicated anything more than that. Unfortunately, however, a particular virulent strain of a virus attacked Melissa's son. He did not have sufficient immune defenses to fight it, and he died the next day.

I have never met Melissa's family. In fact, I barely know her. We have spoken briefly on the phone a few times and exchanged emails around gym things. Once she took my class, and twice I caught her "Whittle you Middle" class, but she moves way too fast for me.  Many of us, including me, received a flu shot in the fall, but children generally aren't given this shot. Flu-like symptoms are nasty, but for most of us the illness runs its course, and we are back to work in three days. Compromised individuals will have a longer course of the illness and take longer to get back to normal.

In 1918 a virulent strain, the Spanish Flu, was first observed at Fort Riley, Kansas on March 4, 1918. This strain spread rapidly worldwide. By June of 1920, 50 to 100 million people had died.

David was just a little boy. Why did this happen? Parents  in this situation might feel forsaken by God, but He is with them in their suffering. sickness, disease and even death are a part of life. sometimes in life, really good things happen to us and sometimes really bad things happen. Such is life.

 A really bad thing happened to Melissa and her family, and there is no reason for it; a part of life happened. God gives us His grace to endure the bad parts of life as we give Him thanks f9or His good grace. Such a sad loss of life should not have happened, but it did, and as God gave us being, we must accept life as it happens. God has not forsaken, Melissa. I pray that she and her family receive God's grace to survive this struggle.