The summer was beginning, and things were going well in the small but quaint city of Dagny.
A bustle of summer activity flowed the streets, and an untroubled joy filled the air. But things
were about to change quickly and dramatically. Suddenly and without much warning, a weather
front formed and moved over the city, bringing with it intense, heavy, concentrated rain.
Water soon began to inundate the city’s drainage systems and fill the city’s impermeable streets.
A flash flood would ravage the city. Tens of thousands of people evacuated.
Thousands of others, who either purposely stayed or didn’t evacuate in time, became trapped.
A young woman in her mid-twenties, named Renee, evacuated the city almost immediately after
receiving the flash flood warning. Coming from a rural town about four hours outside the city,
she had only lived in Dagny for about two years, and this was her first time experiencing something
like this on her own in the city. Promptly, and in a panic, she left and drove to the rural town
she grew up in, where her parents still lived—a town that was not expected to be as affected
by the storms and would not be subjugated to the increased effects of urbanization.
Several days would go by. Renee was safe, but the duplex she was renting and living in in the
city would not make it. The flooding caused severe structural damage, beyond repair. Soon, her lease
was mutually terminated, and she was suddenly faced with the need to find a new place to live.
Rather scarred by the whole experience, she decided she was done living in the city,
and wanted to move back into a more rural town outside of it. And so, that’s what she did.
Several months later, Renee moved into a townhouse in a town about an hour and a
half outside of the city, about halfway between where she grew up and Dagny.
While moving in, while carrying some boxes, Renee happened by one of her new neighbors:
a young man in his mid-twenties, named Steven. Steven noticed her
moving in and introduced himself. He was both somewhat awkward and very handsome.
Renee found his awkwardness kind of endearing, though—surely influenced by his handsomeness.
The two talked for a few minutes, and then Renee continued on about her day and finished moving in.
Later that day, she found a note on her door. The note read, “If you ever need anything,
feel free to reach out.” And then, underneath, there was a phone number and Steven’s name.
Two days later, Renee decided to text Steven. She didn’t need anything, but she kind of wanted him.
They hit it off almost right away—in a way neither had ever felt or experienced before. They seemed
to automatically click, sharing similar senses of humor and ways of texting and thinking and so on.
Two months later, they were dating. As the two spent more and more time together,
it almost felt as if they shared the same path in life, the same origins of the same star stuff,
destined to reconnect and rejoin like cosmic arrangements of matter and energy
fated to find its way back to itself. Soon, the fell deeply in love.
Two years later, Renee and Steven were married. Renee’s life was, for the first time in a long
time, going extremely well. Her and Steven would form a life and relationship together
that was the kind and quality that most people simply cannot and will not ever find in life.
On their one-year wedding anniversary, Renee and Steven were out at dinner, celebrating.
They sat, reminiscing over their past and expressing their excitement for their future.
While talking about how they first met, Renee said, “I always used to say it. And
now I know it’s true. Everything happens for a reason. The fact that I met you when I did,
after going through everything I was. I really was honestly just at the right time
in my life to meet you. And the fact that I was pushed toward you by a literal flood,
it’s some kind of sign. I know that that flood was the universe’s way of pushing me
onto my life’s course, to find you, to find this life. It’s crazy, but I am so happy it happened.
I love you so much, Steven.” Rene’s eyes watered and her face
clenched with a soft happy-sad smile. “I love you too, babe,” Steven said
as he reached out with his glass. The two toasted each other, both with watering eyes.
Rewind about three years. Another individual affected by the flood
was a thirty-two-year-old, single man, named Gustavo. Unlike Renee, Gustavo didn’t make it out
of the city before the flood. He figured the flash flood warning, as it typically was in the past,
was not something to be all that concerned about so long as he just stayed put in his home.
He had lived in Dagny for a while, and floods were quite common; and so, he was relatively
unphased by the situation, assuming it would come and go in a day or so. He was, of course, wrong.
As soon as Gustavo realized how serious the flooding was,
it was too late. He was trapped. His home, which he had somewhat recently bought,
suddenly began filling up with water as it flowed in from the doors and windows and spewed out
through the vents. Items in his living room began floating as his home filled with water. While
scrambling to try to rescue some of his important items, a large glass piece from his coffee table
went rushing toward him, smashing into his ribs and slicing the left side of his abdomen.
Gustavo remained stuck in his house for three days, injured, alone, exposed to the floodwater,
and soon to become ill. As the flood began to subside
and the water in his home began to recede, he was reached by paramedics and rushed to the hospital.
Gustavo arrived at the hospital in rough shape. After running several tests, it was determined
that he had a bad infection and a fractured rib. However, it was determined that he would be ok
and make a full recovery from both. However, the news was not all good. Something else was very
wrong. In an x-ray of his chest and ribs, it was noticed that Gustavo had something on his lungs—a
tumor. Gustavo was a regular smoker, which was likely the cause of what was now being
discovered as lung cancer. The tumor was still in its relatively early stages, but it appeared to
likely be aggressive and quickly developing. The doctor told Gustavo that it would likely
lead to bronchial obstruction or respiratory failure fairly soon if it went untreated.
He told Gustavo that if they didn’t catch it then, it would’ve likely been caught too late
and led to his early death. Gustavo was scheduled for
surgery two weeks later to remove the cancerous tissue before it was too late.
Several months would go by. Gustavo was at a doctor’s appointment.
For the first time since the flood, he was receiving a clean bill of health.
The surgery was a success, ultimately saving and renewing his life. He was no-longer smoking,
and he was living his life normally and vibrantly. To celebrate the news, Gustavo’s family threw
a small party for him at his favorite restaurant. After the drinks were passed
out, his family playfully pressured Gustavo into making a little speech.
He was a bashful man, and was a bit nervous, but the emotions and intensity of his recent situation
allowed him to tap into an eloquent, poignant part of himself that he rarely expressed.
Holding up a glass of champaign, he said, “You know, when I was sitting in my attic, and my
entire house was filled with water, I was bleeding and I felt sick, didn’t know what was going to
happen, and I thought I was going to die, at some point, I remember thinking to myself, ‘Why me?’
I prayed, and I asked God. I asked him to save me, to make sure I would be ok. I begged him.
But as time passed, and things got worse, I wondered why he wasn’t answering my prayers,
why he was doing this to me. I wondered to myself what I had done wrong. I asked him
for forgiveness and for mercy and everything. But now, I see. He was there all along. He was
saving me. He was answering my prayers. I just didn’t know it yet. God has a plan for us all;
and everything happens for a reason. You just have to wait and trust in it.”
Gustavo paused for a brief moment and raised his now sunken glass back up.
“Thank you all for being here with me today to celebrate. To family,
good health, and faith in God. Cheers.” The crowd, covered with soft smiles,
raised their glasses and let out a soft, earnest, synchronized “Cheers.”
About three streets away, at a different restaurant, another person who was deeply
affected by the flood was also out at a dinner. It was a young woman in her twenties, named Alethea.
She was getting together with a few friends from high school, whom she hadn’t seen recently
and only kept in occasional, loose contact with. Alethea lived and worked outside the city.
She was physically fine. She was healthy. Her house was fine. Her job was fine. But the flood
devastated her life. Her older brother Aaron, who lived in the city, like Gustavo, didn’t evacuate
in time. Unlike Gustavo, Aaron tried to get out after the flooding had started. While trying to
drive out, his car was washed off the road into a flooded culvert. He suffered a head injury in
the process. He would not make it out alive. Alethea was extremely close with her brother.
Their father passed away when they were younger, and they had been there for each other and
bonded during and following that loss—and everything else they had been through since.
Now the void of her bother also weighed heavy in her head every day. It’s strange, she thought,
how the void of something can weigh so much more than its presence.
About halfway into the dinner with her friends, one of the girls Alethea was with,
named Rebeca, began talking about her recent breakup with her boyfriend.
While explaining how she felt about him breaking up with her, she said,
“But you know, I just try to always remind myself everything happens for a reason.”
Alethea wasn’t a confrontational or argumentative person. But between the timing, proximity,
and her mood in that moment—likely facilitated by her several martinis—that banal, obscene line,
“everything happens for a reason,” triggered something in her that she couldn’t hold in.
“How?” Alethea said, looking up from her meal and interrupting Rebecca.
A pause filled the table. “How what?” Rebecca responded.
“How does everything happen for a reason?” “I don’t know, I mean… I believe that the
universe, or God, or the way our energies interact with everything, or whatever you want to call it,
I guess, always has a plan for us. Things have a funny way of working themselves out.
There’s been so many times in my life where bad things have happened, and then they’ve actually
led to good things. For me, that’s just proof that those things happened to me for a reason.”
Another brief pause filled the table. “What if what happens kills you?” Alethea said
abruptly, “Or someone you love, someone who is a good person, someone who does good in the world,
someone who is young and has their whole life ahead of them? Did God do that?
If he did, God is a special kind of evil. If he didn’t, what kind of God is he? If the universe
did it, which of course it did in some way, it did it because of a reason, like a cause,
but not for a reason. I know it’s easy to think that things happened for a reason when they work
out for you. We all love the comfort that someone or something is looking out for us
and is making sure we are ok. But for every event that people claim happened for a reason,
a good reason, there are innumerable other people affected by the exact same event
who aren’t ok and wouldn’t say it happened for a reason—because there’s no one left to say anything
at all. Things just happen, and if you’re lucky enough to still be alive after they do, I guess
you can look for a reason—or try to make one up. But that’s as good as it gets.”
Another pause filled the table. This one was much longer.
Then, Rebecca said, “Well, if you are alive, is that not enough?”