A friend died recently. I say friend, but, well, let me tell you what kind of friend.

I’m kind of an awkward person, and I feel like I have a hard time making friends — not that I’m not friendly, but that I feel like I’m imposing if I text someone or ask to grab lunch or whatever.

But I’m also insatiably curious, and I had just finished a book written by a doctor (The Checklist Manifesto) so I texted this person, who I hadn’t spoken much to before except to swap stories about Brasil now and then, and I asked him if he’d heard of the book, and if they used checklists in the manner where he worked.

It was a fairly brief conversation (I think he’d heard of it but hadn’t read it, or maybe he’d read it a while back or something), but he was happy to chat. Remember the whole fear that I’m imposing on people? He was so willing to talk that he left the impression that he wanted to talk to you — that he was happy for the imposition.

This was a man with a demanding career, with extremely demanding hours, with a family and responsibilities in the community. And yet I got the impression, just from texting, that I mattered to him. That he was glad to talk to me.

And that was our friendship. Every few months I’d text him, or he’d text me, and we’d spend a couple hours bouncing texts off each other, and then we wouldn’t speak again for a while. We never got together or anything. In fact, one time I visited his parents house and his brother sat down next to me, except I didn’t realize it was his brother — I thought it was him. So I asked him “How are the kids?” and he said “Um … I think you’re thinking of my brother.”

Listen, they look a lot alike, okay? Or at least somewhat alike. I don’t know. Like I said, we texted a lot.

That’s kind of astounding, that someone could build a meaningful friendship over periodic texts. I’m certain that says way more about him that it does about me.

He died in, well, a freak accident. It’s the kind of thing that has happened thousands of times to thousands of people and most of the time people will pick themselves up and dust off their jeans, or maybe they have a broken wrist or something. It happened in just the wrong way for him and he died.

He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as I am. In our church we kind of romanticize death to an extent. If someone dies we say they were called back, that God had a special mission for them on the other side.

I … don’t really believe that. In this case I definitely don’t believe that, because he had kids and there isn’t a more important mission than being their dad. I think that sometimes accidents happen, and there isn’t a reason. There’s not a purpose or a plan. Someone fell, they landed the wrong way. That’s it.

Life isn’t fair. This friend knew that more than most, because he spent a significant time in Brasil and missionaries in Brasil spend time in the favela. And in the favela you still meet good people — people who are just as deserving of happy lives as anyone else. The only reason they don’t have them is because they were born in the favela, instead of in a hospital in the USA, like I was. Like he was.

Looking for fairness in life, or saying that everything will be made right in the next life … it doesn’t help. It doesn’t help the people dealing with the unfairness today, unfairness that feels like an anchor tied around your heart.

So, I don’t believe in the “mission on the other side” thing. But I do believe that there is a way through grief. I believe that our Heavenly Father loves us. That’s hard to think about when we’re hurting and when the world is so, so obviously unfair.

In the Book of Mormon a prophet named Nephi is conversing with an angel and this exchange occurs:

And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?

And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children, nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things

We can’t know the meaning of all things. And more importantly, some things don’t have meaning. Some things aren’t a step in a plan they just — happen.

But we can hold on to the fact the He loves his children, and that he will help us through our grief. Not by making it make sense, but just by … being there. He helps us get through it just by … helping us get through it.

And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens…

That’s easy for me to say. He was my friend, but what’s disappeared from my life are the occasional text exchanges. For so many others he meant so much more and all that I’ve written probably feels … trite. I get that. It is trite. This isn’t meant for them, this is just me. Processing my own iota of grief.