Fairness

Yesterday it occurred to me for perhaps the first time that something doesn't necessarily have to be fair or unfair. Sometimes things are just not fair or not unfair. Let me explain. I would hope that I'd be hard pressed to find someone who would characterize my loss of two sons at birth as fair. Probably quite the contrary. But are those losses really unfair? Especially in light of my last post about others' children. Perhaps. But I think that maybe my losses are best categorized as not unfair. I would definitely not consider them fair. But, what makes them so unfair? Because my neighbor or my sister didn't suffer the loss of two babies? If they had, would that make it fair - tit for a tat kind of thing? Hardly, it would just double the sorrow in the world and mean that another family had to bear the heavy burden of losing two children. Is it unfair that they haven't lost two children like I have? No. Who am I to make such judgments?

I have been raised in terms of fairness. One of three children, the oldest at that, I learned the word "fair" at an early age. This concept of fairness was fostered and soon enough life was gauged in terms of fairness. Sure the phrase "life isn't fair" was tossed around here and there. But lessons to really drive that point home were so very missing. I find myself dealing with fairness issues and arguments on a daily basis dealing with three young girls. Three children of the same gender tends to make things more complicated than it was for me growing up with a sister and a brother. It seems that our parents were quite concerned with fairness when my husband and I were children and have yet to let those pesky concerns go. Not me, as a parent I seize opportunities of unfairness. I think it is an important lesson to learn and the earlier the better. Because that's just it, life isn't fair. People are not treated fair and despite any and all efforts to the contrary, true fairness and equality is a mythical concept. Plain and simple.

So I'll just stick with not unfair. Instead of asking "why me" maybe the better question is "why not me"? I would be a fool to hold myself out as so divine that such things should not happen to me. I'm far from perfect. Imperfection has taught me that things don't have to be constantly measured in terms of fairness but that doesn't mean they can't be not fair or not unfair.