Many people have experienced the sudden death of a friend, peer, relative, etc. How do you explain this? When someone who’s been nice, kind and loving die without warning due to heart attack, cancer, etc. How can one help their spouse and explain to the person mourning? I know it’s most probably G-ds will and everyone has the time to be born and the time to die…but how does someone console a family member or friend when this occurs. Thank you for your insight and assistance.
We live in a time when many accounts are being settled in a very rapid fashion. I believe it was the Chofetz Chaim who compares this to one who is writing a postcard from abroad. The big, slow letters that occupy most of the card say things like having a good time, wish you were here. When getting to the bottom of the card, the writer recalls that he has something to say and the writing becomes quick and tight. Events of recent times are history in fast forward. The same seems to be true for souls that have a small bit of business left in this world in order to achieve their ultimate perfection for the world to come. As such these souls seem to come into the world for what we would call a brief time, often achieving a great deal of purification and then moving on. The bereaved parent or spouse could take comfort in knowing that they have facilitated the ultimate perfection of the one they loved.
May death be wiped away forever and tears wiped from the faces of the bereaved.
With blessings,
edb