It's Not Fair.

On April 5th of this year, a friend of mine from college passed away due to a brain stem injury. Jayme Parks-Soulis was part of our Liahona Student Fellowship for the last couple of years that I was there. She was a vibrant spirit. She was always incredibly friendly and contributed much to the campus ministry.

Then, shortly before one of our school years ended, we found out that she had breast cancer. Over that summer, she had a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery to heal her and bring her life back to normal. She was very strong through the whole ordeal and I admired her very much for that. She went on to live her dreams -- of moving to France and teach there -- and for a long time I hadn't heard much about her.

Then, early this year I got news from her best friend Meghan that Jayme had suffered a terrible brain injury that put her in a life-supported coma from which she would never return. No car crash caused it. No previous injury caused it. It just attacked her out of the blue like her breast cancer had in college. Unfortunately she couldn't beat this.

It's not fair.

I don't use that sentence lightly. In fourth grade, my teacher Mrs. Lewis shared a very important thing with us: Don't keep saying that things aren't fair because they aren't going to be. I trained myself not to say, "It's not fair," because I knew better. I had learned that that three-word sentence is a cop out for not getting your way.

But what happened to Jayme: That's NOT fair. It wasn't fair that she got breast cancer in college, and it's certainly not fair that she died of a brain stem injury at 23 years old! It's not fair for a young woman, who's worked so hard and come so far, to be taken down in the prime of her life.

Life wasn't fair to Jayme. I can only pray that the Lord will comfort her in heaven and comfort his family and friends here.

Jayme's obituary in The Examiner