A reason happens for everything

If you've never heard of Jacqueline Saburido before, then beware this video is a bit gruesome and a major downer...

http://www.glumbert.com/media/drunkdriving

And that video isn't anywhere near as gruesome as the full details of everything she's been through and continues to go through.

If you do a Google search on Jacqueline Saburido (Jaqui), you'll see there are multiple websites devoted to her and her story. She has been the focus of a major outpouring of sympathy and consideration. She has become a powerful figure in the campaign against drunk driving. When you see the videos of her and her story, you can't help but feel twisted up inside.

But why is it that nobody seems to notice, or care, or even remember that two other kids actually DIED in that car accident? Death is not a strong deterrent to drunk driving?

Everyone cares deeply for Jacqueline's father and feels sorry for what he's had to go through...but nobody even remotely cares for the parents of the other two kids who died. You have to dig deep in all the news stories to even find the names of those kids! They are almost totally forgotten.

The reason nobody notices the death of the two other kids is this: We all instinctively know that there are things worse than death. It is absolutely true, and we all know it, but when forced to confront that fact, most of us will deny it. This is exactly why the doctors brought her back to life even though they must have known it would be an abomination to do so, and would put her through an experience worse than letting her die. This is why laws that allow assisted suicides for terminally ill patients never pass. If nothing is worse than death, then why is euthanizing a suffering pet an acceptable practice? We allow more peace and dignity for our pets than for our own kind.

Jacqui is interesting because what she has been through is more horrifying to us than just dying in a car accident. And yet a majority of us refuse to honestly confront that kind of thinking. We can't bare the weight of these decisions upon us. We want easy and guilt-free answers to our biggest questions, and we will do anything to anybody to get them. If you let a suffering person die, people will call you a monster. If you prolong their suffering indefinitely by keeping them alive, people will call you a miracle worker.

It is highly ironic that the people who are most unwilling to accept death are religious people who believe that there is a better world after death. They hide behind catch phrases like "Everything happens for a reason" and "This was God's will". I get so infuriated with these philosophical lightweights. Maybe it was "God's will" for Jacqui to die that day, and the doctors disobeyed His will by bringing her back? Surely the doctors are not agents of God's will, for they become better at avoiding death every year, and the day will come when they cure aging and stop death altogether.

It is only an atheist doctor who could make a reasonable argument for giving a patient every opportunity to hang on to this life, if that is what the patient wants. But no, the rabid strain of "live at all costs" thinking actually comes from the religious individuals. And yet these same people believe that this life on Earth is infinitely insignificant compared to what awaits us beyond. If you believe in Heaven, then surely you realize that Jacqui would be enjoying Heaven all this time instead of enduring over 50 surgeries and agony of an intensity and duration that few people will ever suffer. Her parents could have grieved and moved on instead of being trapped in an ongoing ordeal that will last until the day they die...at which point Jaqui might wind up under institutional care!

But are we to believe there is a good reason for Jaqui to be denied Heaven only to be put through a living Hell? If everything happens for a reason, then what was the reason for death of the two other kids in this car accident? Nobody even remembers them. Their lives have had no impact on drunk-driving awareness at all.

Everything does NOT happen for a reason...rather...human beings are surprisingly capable of making a reason happen for everything. Jacqui has a horrific story to tell, and people have been able to make use of that in drunk-driving awareness campaigns. But Jacqui could have just as easily had the same thing happen to her at the hands of a sober driver who just lost control due to a flat tire. Then what would you do for Jaqui? Have her campaign for tire safety? Well, you could make Jacqui into an inspirational speaker who demonstrates how the human spirit can triumph over adversity. (And you quietly hide the fact that Jacqui does, in fact, suffer from depression and has had many bouts of wanting to die, and might have actually killed herself by now if she had fingers or the means to do so.)

There have been tens of thousands of women in Congo who were so violently raped that they've suffered permanent internal organ damage and can't lead normal lives. Do we suppose this happened for a reason too? Would you try and argue that the reason for their suffering was to draw attention to the horrible situation in the Congo? As if a death toll of 4 million people since 1996 has NOT conveyed that message? And if it hasn't, then what was the "reason" for the death of the 4 million? To make matters worse, there is such a cultural stigma against rape that most of these women keep it a secret to the day they die. They fade away, unnoticed by anyone, with all their suffering left unbalanced by any later positive outcome.

There is some validity to using a horrific experience to remind people that horrific experiences can happen. Yes, you can find meaning and purpose in that goal, but the purpose is not the reason for the experience!! A divinely inspired world would have no such experiences to begin with, and would need no such lesson...or at the very least would find some other way to teach that lesson than "by example". Surely an all-powerful being could educate us about the dangers of drunk driving without very SLOWLY burning a young woman alive while she is conscious and screaming in agony (as Jacqui was).

I don't want you to think I don't feel sorry for Jacqui. I feel more-than-sorry for her, I feel downright heartbroken. She haunts my thoughts. But now that she is past the worst parts of her ordeal, I am trying to be optimistic that she'll be able to find peace and meaning in her life. She seems to have an incredibly strong character. But will the rest of her life be worth everything she has had to endure and everything she will yet endure? That is an unknown, and at no point will the doctors allow her to make that call for herself.

She has paid an unbelievably high price in order to have these additional years of life, so she might as well try and make the best of them. But instead of raising awareness of drunk driving, maybe she could raise awareness of the hypocrisy and childish fantasy that muddies the waters of some of the most important decisions we'll ever make in our lives.