A Time To Live

When I spoke to Dana this morning, she told me that a young man I knew of, had tragically succumbed to the brain tumour that had plagued him for the last year-and-a-half.

He was not yet 25 years old.

Later on, she told me that one of my oldest friends has finally become engaged to a Canadian girl. I couldn't be happier for him...despite the fact that he's totally written me out of his life (for no reason that I can comprehend) .

So one man dies and the other finds true happiness whilst I find out about both events on the very same day.

How can one reconcile oneself with such opposing pieces of news?

Does my joy at the engagement mean that I am negating the tragedy of the death? Alternatively, if I mourn the death of the young man, can I really celebrate my friend's engagement?

At this juncture in the Hebrew Calendar, we are about to read the Book of Kohelet - Ecclesiastes. King Solomon tells us that...

"Everything has an appointed season, and there is a time for every matter under the heaven.

A time to give birth and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to uproot that which is planted."

Maybe, this wisest of men holds the answer to my quandary, for today, I witnessed both the "time to die" and the "time to plant".

I guess that I need these "times" to make me appreciate what really matters in the overall scheme of things.

So I will mourn the death of the lad, but keep in mind the belief that this young man, were he alive would no doubt share in the joy of another human being finally finding his soul mate - and I guess that this is the only way to deal with this very human quandary.