It's Not Fair! (So What?)

There's a lot of worry over fairness in my house these days, mostly on the part of my eight-year-old daughter. It's not fair, she tells me, that her baby brother gets to stay up later than she does, that everyone she knows has a trampoline and she doesn't, or that her dad can buy himself a Coke whenever he likes while she gets to have one only if we say it's okay. I've noticed, too, that the expectation that everything be fair is not limited to kids. I've heard protests against the "unfairness" of everything ranging from minor issues such as having less to choose from at the lunch buffet than your friend did the day before to the Really Big Deals like cancer and horrific natural disasters.

My response? "Fair's a place where men in coveralls toss cowchips for distance."

Much as I'd like to, I can't take credit for that gem of a line. I got it from my mom and I heard it more than I care to remember as I was growing up. Her seeming non-chalance in the face of my righteous indignation drove me up a wall back in the day, but as I've gotten older I've learned to appreciate the value of not expecting life to be fair.

I recently read a magazine article written by a woman struggling with infertility. Her story was painful to read; the heartbreak she endured as she battled against her own body would have been my undoing had I been in her shoes. What struck me most, however, was her anger and bitterness at the "unfairness" of it all. She wrote resentfully about fertile friends and family members, and the sense that she felt entitled to conceive and bear children seemed to far overshadow the grief and sadness of her losses. My heart went out to her, truly, but I was left somewhat baffled by her outrage at the perceived injustice. Where, I wondered, did she get, the idea--the expectation--that life should be fair?

Of course, some may argue that it's easy for me to shrug and say that life's not fair. I don't know her pain, after all; I don't understand. And it's true, I don't know that pain. I'm no stranger to pain, however, and I'm well acquainted with grief and loss. I can have sympathy and empathy for anyone who suffers, even if I don't have specific experience with her particular pain. What I can't understand is the feeling of having been wronged, when clearly there is no wrong-doer.

One of my particular pains is that I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis seven years ago, three days before my twenty-fifth birthday. Since the day I sat in the local hospital's ER and heard the neurologist deliver the results of my MRI, I have said many, many variations of, "This really sucks!" and "I HATE this!" I have never said, nor even thought, "This isn't fair," or "Why me?" (Really, why not me?) The way I see it, railing at God, the universe, whathaveyou, about the unfairness of it all would serve only to add to the burden of my struggle against MS, and I can't help but be thankful that my mother instilled in me early on the knowledge that life just ain't fair.

I can only hope to be as successful in imparting the same message to my own children. As much as I wish their days would all be sunshine and roses, I expect all of them will have occasion in their lives to appreciate their grandmother's words of wisdom.