On Feb. 4, Shyra Monet McGee an accomplished 23-year-old student and resident adviser at Kansas University was killed in a late-night car accident at the intersection of Sixth Street and Monterey Way.
Four days later, the city lost another young person when 18-year-old Joshua Shuckahosee a Lawrence High School senior who loved wrestling and martial arts lost control of his Ford pickup and struck a utility pole at the intersection of Clinton Parkway and Lawrence Avenue.
Family and friends of the two young people were left to cope with their sudden, tragic deaths and a world that no longer seemed to make much sense.
"Anytime we lose a young person and we've lost several in the last few years I just know how it affects me. It's always a reality check," says the Rev. Renrown, pastor of Ninth Street Baptist Church, 847 Ohio.
McGee was a member of the church and had been there twice on the day she died.
"You just don't expect people to die at that age," Brown says. "But you're not promised tomorrow; you've got to be ready."
Lawrence spiritual leaders and counselors say tragedies like the losses of McGee and Shuckahosee are deeply upsetting because they challenge the belief that life should make sense, that the world is a place of order and meaning.
When life takes an unexpected turn, when a loved one dies or gets sick, the belief systems that people rely upon are shattered.
How can people cope, and go on with their lives, when the meaning of life suddenly becomes elusive?
That's a dilemma that members of the clergy and professional counselors deal with regularly.
"Most of us, as ministers and spiritual leaders, believe it is very important to recognize and affirm those questions that people have. They go to the very heart of what it means to be a human being," says the Rev. Peter Luckey, senior pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt.
"These questions have been on the lips of people of faith for thousands of years. The whole book of Job tries to respond to that question: Why do bad things happen to good people?"
Finding own answers
Barrie Arachtingi works frequently with people who are grieving a loss in their lives. She's a licensed psychologist and executive director of Christian Psychological Services, 500 Rockledge Road.
In the wake of a tragedy, patients often question their faith and even feel angry at God.
Arachtingi tells people it's OK to be angry, but that they should work through those painful issues and move on.
It isn't easy.
"A lot of times, answers don't come for a long, long time," she says. "There's just this sort of a movement toward an acceptance of what has happened. People will go back between hurt, anger and pain for quite some time.
"I've worked with some people who have experienced one tragedy after another, and when that kind of thing happens, it gets harder to make sense of it all. But there's usually some very important kind of learning from it, or something to be gained."
The Rev. Peter Oesterlin worked as a chaplain and department head of pastoral care for 28 years in the Veterans Affairs hospital system. He often helped people struggle with tragic loss and the search for meaning in times of pain.
"I'd allow that person to be angry and upset, and still stay in the conversation," says Oesterlin, interim pastor of Trinity Episcopal Church, 1011 Vt. "It's awfully important to keep talking. When people stop talking, they go inside (themselves), they get isolated and it gets really bad."
Oesterlin didn't pretend to have all the answers to explain why people were suffering or draw easy conclusions for them.
"I think the answer is within the person, not within me. The trick is to help the person find an answer that belongs to him or to her. That's what brings peace," he says.
Life goes on
Brown of Ninth Street Baptist encourages people who are coping with tragedy to draw upon their faith and belief in the divine.
"When something bad or tragic happens to a believer, that believer has to look at it from the standpoint that (their loss) may not be good, but God will make some good come out of it," he says.
The challenge for people of faith is to try to salvage some sense of meaning out of tragic events to look for the silver lining, something of value that can be transforming.
"God's hand is always in there somewhere. The more you get to know him, the more you see it," Brown says.
Lequetta Diggs has had to survive tragedy in her life.
The Lawrence woman's husband was murdered about 20 years ago, when the couple lived in the Kansas City area.
He was 36, and left behind twin sons who were 7.
She and her sons have struggled, over the years, to deal with the loss.
"We don't make sense of the tragedy. But one of the things we have said over and over is that in spite of those tragedies, life has to go on," says Diggs, a board member of Ecumenical Christian Ministries, 1204 Oread Ave.
"What we do is try to draw strength from it, and talk about what we've been able to accomplish in spite of it, talk about our appreciation of his life and who he was."
Diggs thinks she has gained strength and perspective through the experience.
"If nothing else, we've learned to grieve with each other and shed tears.
"Once you go through a grief process, it enhances your appreciation of the time when you're not grieving," she says.
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