Content warning: Death and car accident

I have often wondered how a God who is supposed to care about every individual person, every human supposedly made in his image, allows people to suffer and die seemingly so pointlessly. The problem of pain and senseless suffering is undoubtedly the doubter’s most understandable complaint with a “good God.” 

I saw somebody die once. 

Kayla has an injured knee. She made an appointment to try out a new doctor at the hospital to see if she’d need surgery. 

I insisted on taking her in my car so she wouldn’t have to take the bus. 

We parked in an outdoor visitor lot at like eight in the morning on that Wednesday. The lot was guarded by one of those gates with a single, long, automated arm that pointed up when you took your ticket from the box. We went inside the nice big fancy hospital building with glass walls. The security guard at the desk directed us to the elevator. We went up. Kayla checked in. We sat in some chairs and read our books. 

There was a man in a wheelchair. A young lady with a backpack. An elderly woman with a cane. 

Kayla’s appointment didn’t take very long at all. 

We went back down the elevator, thanked the security guard, and pushed open the second set of doors, stepping out into the warm summer morning. 

Kayla was telling me about what the doctor said as we approached the car and climbed inside. We kept chatting, though I don’t remember about what. The windows were rolled down. Around fifteen minutes had passed before we even realized that we hadn’t moved, and that the car in front of us was stuck at the exit gate. 

“Okay, now this is taking too long.” I poked my head out the driver’s side window, and Kayla craned her neck to see into the car in front of us. 

“Isn’t that the lady who was with us in the waiting room upstairs? The one with the cane?” 

I squinted my eyes against the sun. 

“To be honest, I can’t really tell… maybe?” 

“No, it definitely is,” Kayla said. “I feel like she maybe shouldn’t be driving.” 

As we discussed, the long arm of the gate finally lifted. 

“Yay! Finally!” I laughed. 

But the tan car sat there. 

“Go!” I said, “C’mon, go!” 

The car revved, stayed completely stationary, and the gate closed. 

“Nooo!” I groaned. I was about to open my door, walk up there, and see if I could help her, when her engine suddenly revved, the tires squealed, and the small tan car lurched forward, completely breaking off the arm of the gate. 

The car sped forward like a brick had been dropped on the gas. Instead of turning onto the road, it burst up onto the opposite curb and flew along the pathway, tearing up grass, bushes, and hitting trash cans and benches. The trunk popped completely open in response to the turbulence. The car continued to weave alongside the hospital’s glass walls, and just when I thought it might crash into the entrance doors, it made a sharp, screeching turn, and bounced off the curb, back onto the street. The front bumper scraped against the cement and the trunk bobbed as the car made its final landing. Then it just slowly started moving towards the main road. 

It all happened so fast, but Kayla and I came to ourselves in our seats. I immediately noticed two pedestrians standing in the parking lot to my left. One of them was on the phone, clearly with 911. 

I put my own car into drive and inched out past the broken gate. We drove slowly down the street, observing all the damage the car had done to the area on our left—deep tire tracks in the grass, torn up bushes, a tipped over trash can… 

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” I stammered.

Lying on the sidewalk, in a pool of blood, were two people. 

Security guards, doctors, and I don’t know who else came running out of the building. 

“Kayla!” I yelled suddenly. “Jump out and see how you can help. I’m gonna follow the car.” 

She jumped out without argument. And I floored it towards the main road. 

I looked to the left and to the right, but didn’t see the tan car. 

So I zoomed up to the light, and saw that the car had turned right. I hit the gas and got up to its tail. 

“911, what’s your emergency?” 

I had my phone on speaker. 

“Hi, you guys received a call from another witness a little bit ago about a car going out of control in the visitor lot at Rush Hospital on Armitage…I was there and I am now following the vehicle in my own car.” 

I gave the operator a play-by-play of every street the car turned on to—“We just turned right on Vanburen,”—and let them know what direction we were going—“Uhhh, I think this is east? Yes, we’re heading east on Racine,”—until the car was about to merge on the highway. 

The cops cornered her vehicle just in time. 

I pulled over behind her and waited. 

A uniform approached my window. 

“License, please.” 

I told the detective my part in this story and how I just witnessed the incident and followed the car. I got the go-ahead to return to the hospital and talk to the officers there. 

I pulled up and the whole corner was blocked off. 

Cop cars were flashing. 

Kayla told me the ambulance had just left. She told me there was so much blood. She told me that they got the man to sit up, he was disheveled and confused but speaking, but the woman was unresponsive. 

We were interrupted by another detective who wrote down both our names and numbers and got our testimonies. 

Then, we left. 

We were both quiet as we got in the car. Kayla was staring straight ahead. The engine purred to live as I pushed the ignition and shifted to “Drive.” Then suddenly, she spoke. 

“Sophia, I have a feeling that man lost his wife today.” 

I didn’t know what to say, and to be honest, I don’t remember what I DID say. I think told her that I’m sure she would be alright, especially because she got medical attention quite immediately after the incident. Thank God that all those people were there to help her. 

Then, a few months went by. 

I was sitting in a coffee shop, when I got a call on my phone from an unknown number—but a Chicago area code. 

“Hello?” 

It was a lawyer. She was representing the couple who were the victims of the accident. She asked me to explain in my own words what happened, so I did. 

And then I asked, “I’m sorry, I think earlier you briefly mentioned the name of the couple—what’s the lady’s name again?” 

“Stacey.” 

“Right. And, how is Stacey? Is she okay?” 

“Unfortunately, she didn’t survive the accident.” 

I asked her to relay my condolences to the victim’s surviving husband and family. She said she would. And of course, Kayla’s words rang like a gong in my head. 

Next time I saw Kayla, I told her that the lawyer had called me. I told her about our conversation, how she just wanted to hear the story from my perspective. And then, of course, she asked. 

“Did she say anything about whether the lady survived?” 

“No—no, she didn’t mention it.” 

It was at eleven in the morning on a random Wednesday. In spring, too. A man and his wife just went to a routine doctor’s appointment. They were leaving. Walking on the sidewalk. Not even NEAR the road. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet. The car came out of nowhere. Moved up onto the grass. And now, a man’s wife is gone. 

I was raised to believe that God cared about me; that I was special, made in God’s image, that God loves me and hears me and will protect me. 

And then, people like Stacey die. 

Parents at the southern border seeking asylum from gang-run countries get separated from their children. 

Who is really that special?