pointless

We went to our friend's funeral today.  It was memorable, to say the least.  The entire Stake Center was filled, front to back--even the chairs set up on the stage were filled  (which Ben and the boys helped to set up last night).  The boys and I got there a few minutes early, but the parking lot had obviously been full for a long time, and the overflow parking was blocks away.  I did manage to park due to a kind and understanding policeman who let me park in the VIP area.  And wow, were there some VIP's there.  Justice Clarence Thomas spoke along with Judge Edith Jones, chief judge of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Senator Cornyn was there.  I'm sure there were other noteworthies that I was not aware of.  I've never seen Secret Service men at an LDS church building before, and I'm not sure I will again.  I'm quite sure I'll never see a Supreme Court Justice in a church building again (let alone hear one speak in one).  Ben and I tried to impress upon the boys what a unique experience this was-- for them to see Justice Thomas if for no other reason. 
I just really hated that this was the occasion. 
It was a wonderful service.  The irony is that the better the service was, the worse I'm sure everyone felt.  The whole thing just feels so dreadfully wrong to me, and I think to everyone there.  Not that death ever feels right, I know.
Ben and I debated bringing the boys.  Well, I debated, anyway.  Ben was sure they should go.  The only funeral I attended as a child was my brother's, and I obviously wish that funeral had never happened.  I actually have not been to many funerals at all.  And I've only been to two for people who died after long, good lives.  The last few funerals I have been to were for a friend's son who committed suicide, a young mother leaving 3 kids and a husband after a long battle with cancer, and now this good man leaving behind his wife and sons and a career in which he still had so much truly influential good to offer to his clients and to this country.  There has been nothing remotely joyful, or even particularly hopeful (except for in the extremely broad scheme of things) in any of these funerals.  And so I worried about bringing the boys.  But I'm glad I did.  I think it was really good for the boys to spend an hour hearing a good man being praised for all the right reasons.  Also good for them to get a small sense of the fragility of life.
The hammer of mortality falls on whom it will, without regard for its victims or the wake of its aftermath.  Some people might see the inscrutable design of God in these hammer-blows, but I, for one, do not.  I sometimes wish I could-- it might be comforting.  On the other hand, I see many people turn against God when they feel he has "willed" this or that event.  The only way for me to resolve the theodicy question is to believe that he does not will tragedy.  God is many things but I don't believe he is capricious.  God is the great Arbiter, but he is not arbitrary.  There is just too much caprice in these sorts of disasters that fall upon good, undeserving people for me to accept them as God's specific design.  But there is a trade off for this philosophy.  Tragedy is (to me) more tragic when there is no reason.  The senselessness increases the sheer sadness of the situation, and I cannot stop thinking about my friend and her boys.  It does not seem possible that this has really happened, and several times a day I feel my heart stop for a second as I contemplate their new reality.  Thinking of her coming back home and seeing her husband's socks on the floor, his half-filled laundry basket in the closet.  Getting the mail and having to open letters addressed to him.  Going into the bathroom and finding his shaving cream and cologne sitting there on the countertop.  Walking past his car parked in the driveway or garage with his favorite radio stations programmed in the stereo, the empty drink in the cup holder.  Opening the freezer to see the partly-eaten carton of his favorite ice cream.  The hugeness of her loss is something I can't wrap my arms around, and I suspect she can't at this point either.  But imagining the small details, the minutiae of a life plucked up mid-stream is what cuts me to the quick.  How does one survive those uncountable individual wounds?  I just don't know.  And I'm only thinking of the loss of her husband.  Her mother died, too, but I just can't think about that. 
I have no point in all this rambling.  Just as I see no point at all in the awfulness of Greg's death.