Left with nothing

I came home from a morning of fun, carefree tiangge shopping to several text messages telling me that a student's father had died of a heart attack earlier in the day. This same student had lost her mother to cancer not over a year ago. I read the messages and fell back against the couch in stunned disbelief. In spite of myself, the first thing that came to mind was the cliched lament, how could life be so cruel to someone so young? Then anger took over: anger at life's cruelty, anger at the unfairness of the universe, anger at my being powerless to do anything, anger at not having anyone to blame. I stewed silently for the rest of the day.

I'm still angry now. But what can I do? As someone whose faith in a superior being is weak at best, non-existent at worst, I cannot seek solace in the tired lines of "God has a plan" and "God works in mysterious ways". I don't even have the luxury of railing "why God, why?!" to vent. I just have this stinging reaffirmation of the conviction that life is painfully finite, and maddeningly unpredictable, and unavoidably harsh to even the best of people. Beyond that, beyond my anger, I am left with nothing... nothing but sorrow, and sympathy, and the certainty that my student will eventually be all right, because this I do have faith in: I believe in her strength, and the strength of the love from her friends and family. And maybe that's something... maybe that's everything.