by Marilyn and Jeffrey Altbush

We have stayed awake, night after night, trying to figure out what our reaction to all of this shall be. Here’s what we’ve decided for ourselves:

We still believe in God. Faith’s death should not be viewed as a referendum on the existence of God. Faith’s illness was a random, but terrible occurrence. Our inability to understand the why's and wherefore's of this randomness reflects our mortal limitations. The inability of the country’s best doctors to cure Faith reflects humankind’s current limitations.

We must be humble. From the first moment of receiving Faith’s diagnosis, we realized that we had no unique claim to grief. There has always been a world of pain and suffering around us, but we were insulated emotionally from it. In leaving our happy, protected life behind, we have now joined the real world where bad things that happen to good people affect us personally.

We will continue to embrace life. We will not pretend that we are happy, but we will remain hopeful. Faith was a gift from God. Her gift to us was happiness. She reconnected us to the magic of children. Her beauty was a constant reminder of the beauty of life. Like a magnet, she drew people to her and to each other. We cannot repudiate her gift, even with her death.