Bradley Beach, N.J. — “I’m angry with God,” a friend tells me. She is 85 years old. She has had a difficult life. She is suffering from a condition that causes her constant pain. She feels depressed. Mostly about God. “I don’t understand him any more,” she says.
“I’m not certain I do either,” I admitted. I was also not certain if that was important. To understand.

“He’s got things confused,” my friend told me. “I can’t get over it. How confused God is lately. He’s not taking older people the way he used to do. Sick people. People who are tired of living. Who have lived a long productive life. Who are ready to go. I’m ready to go,” she said. “I tell God every day…. ‘God, I don’t know why you have me here. I’m not well. I’m old. I’m tired. I’m not afraid. In fact, I’m eager to make the trip with you. Every day I open my eyes and say, What? You forgot me again.’”

I understood how my friend felt. Approaching 70, sometimes I question the same things. Younger people leaving and I am here. Younger people who have futures ahead of them. My future is much shorter now. Each day I awake wondering what is expected of me. I must make the day count because it is so precious. It is not to be wasted. Not as I once did when I was young.

“What do you think has gotten into God?” my friend asks. “Sept. 11, for instance. That really did it for me. All those young people. All of them probably in good health. All of them planning great futures. God takes them. Just like that.

“And me? I get up the next morning and have my breakfast and go to the doctor and he gives me something for my pain and then I have the whole day in front of me. And I’m tired at the beginning of it. Do you think God’s confused? Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing any more. Do you think he can make a mistake? And who does he go to if he does? To straighten him out. To get him on the right track again.”

The conversation upsets me. My friend is my role model. Fifteen years older than me, she has taken care of her disabled sister all her life. And a disabled child who is now grown and who lives away but often visits. She takes care of her house and she also cares for anyone who might need help. Her energy seems limitless.

“Maybe God is just tired too,” she tells me. “And maybe he’s fed up. With us. Maybe he’s punishing us. Keeping us here so long. I have so many friends, some close to 90. They are ready to go too. They don’t know why they are still here. Some of them have buried their children. Parents are supposed to go before their children. So what happened? Did God forget us? I’ve got medicine on my shelves and prescriptions all over the place to help me live a longer life.”

She raised her voice. “I want God to tell me why. You don’t know how I want to hear his answer. I talk to him all the time. More than ever lately. I tell him that I used to feel he was a loving God, an understanding God, a wise God and I believed in him 85 years without questioning, but now I’ve got a big question. Why is he taking the young and leaving the old? We have a whole generation of people in their 80s and 90s. That never happened before. Many of us are asking the same question. Why are we here?”

I turn to my friend. I do not know where the words come from. But they rush forward. “I love you,” I tell her. “You are my role model. I watch your courage and it makes me want to live. I watch your strength and it makes me want to be strong. I listen to your laughter and it makes me want to join you. I see your unselfishness and it makes me want to be a better person. I think all the time, if you can do it, so can I. If at 85, you can be a caretaker, a homeowner, still drive, still be independent, still be there for your family if needed and still be reading, learning and contributing your wisdom, than so must I. You are here because we need you here. I need you here.”

She looks at me and her face brightens. Her arms encircle my body as she lovingly replies, “Maybe God answered me after all.”

Harriet May Savitz is a writer living in New Jersey. The author of 20 books, including the recent “Messages from Somewhere: Inspiring Stories of Life After 60” (Little Treasures Publications), she has also contributed to “Chicken Soup for the Golden Soul.” Her book “Run, Don’t Walk” was made into an ABC Afterschool Special produced by Henry Winkler.