A Reflection Following the Death of a Student's Parent. I have had to offer a variation on this reflection too many times in my work as a campus minister. This is your life, joys and sorrow mingled, one succeeding the other. Catherine McAuley’s Letter to Frances Warde May 28, 1841 The hard truth about being alive is that if we live long enough, we will experience the death of several people that we love. Seeing these loved ones die is incredibly painful and almost impossible to make sense of. Why does a good God allow people to suffer? Why do people have to die in the first place? What purpose could it possible serve. There are not good answers to these questions. I have spent a long time wresting with them, myself, and the only answer I find satisfying is this: we do not suffer alone. Our pain troubles God so much that he came to be with us. God took the form of a human being and told us that we are not forgotten and not alone. God came and suffered with u