The Quiet Crisis

What do I say or do in times like this?

I had prayed. I had asked.

“No more bad news,” I begged.

“No more bad luck, no more heartbreak.”

I whispered it so many times, hoping my voice would reach somewhere, anywhere, that could make it stop.

But the words felt hollow. Lies, all lies.

I was tired. I felt it in my bones, in my breath.

Tired of this unrelenting weight that no one seemed to understand.

No one deserves this.

But even as I thought it, I couldn’t find the words to make it make sense.

How could this happen? To someone with a beating heart? To a family from the start?

It felt like something unnatural, like a cruel mistake. How could the world—our world—be this way?

They breathe, just like us.

They live, just like us.

Then one day, too soon, they fly away. Gone from this earth before they’ve had the chance to leave their mark.

What do I say or do?

I haven’t cried yet, but my chest aches with something that feels like emptiness.

I stood in silence, asking myself why I couldn’t sleep. Why I couldn’t think. Why I couldn’t breathe.

And then the unthinkable happened.

It unfolded before me, and everything I’d been holding onto cracked open.

Why does heaven take them so soon?

What do I do now?

Do I continue to pray when every prayer I’ve whispered has seemed to fall on deaf ears?

I’ve been patient. So patient. I’ve let go of the things I thought were hurting me—believing it would bring me closer.

Closer to what? To God? To some higher power I’ve only heard of, never truly felt?

What do I say now?

Do I keep asking, keep hoping?

Do I continue to believe in something that takes souls away—before their hands are even wrinkled, before their hair turns grey or blue?

Is that what faith is? A belief in something beyond our understanding, even when it feels wrong?

Maybe that’s the hardest part.

The knowing that I don’t know.

And yet, I keep asking, because I don’t know what else to do.

I thought I understood what faith was. I thought I had it figured out.

I believed that if I was good, if I prayed enough, if I gave enough of myself, the world would spare me the pain that others suffered.

But what does it mean when the prayer goes unanswered? When the people you love are taken without warning, leaving only questions and an aching void?

There’s a part of me that wants to scream out. To demand answers.

But I know, deep down, that there’s no one who can give them to me.

No explanation that will make it make sense.

Because maybe life isn’t about making sense of everything. Maybe it’s about learning to live with the unanswered questions.

Learning to walk through the storm when the sun refuses to shine.

I don’t know if I believe in everything I once did.

But I know that I don’t want to lose the hope that I still carry.

I don’t want to give up on finding something good in the world, even when it feels like it’s been ripped away.

I don’t want to stop praying, even if the silence feels deafening.

What do I say now?

I don’t know.

But maybe that’s the point.

To keep asking, to keep hoping, even when I don’t understand why.

Even though I want to know why.

To hold on to what little faith I have left, even if it’s fragile.

Because what else is there to do?