I glanced around the room. I couldn’t describe the hundred women gathered there as losers. If anything, the opposite

Random. def: made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision.

AS the mother of teens, that word has entered my lexicon in the most, well… random of ways. As in, “Totally random question, Ma, but why aren’t we going on vacation this year?”

Sometimes I, too, have a random question. A random question to Hashem. As in: Why me? As the mother of two kids with special needs, my question isn’t, “Why did You do this, Hashem?” It’s, “Why did You pick me?” Seriously? Do You have that amount of confidence in me that I can do this? And if so, maybe I can harness some of that confidence for myself? Because I think this decision may have been a mistake. I’m really not the type for saintliness.

So why was I sitting here in a room full of women, all mothers of kids with special needs, all of whom were probably way more deserving than I?

The speaker was describing her initial exposure to her son’s diagnosis. “The doctor said to us, ‘Picture yourself in a forest with thousands of trees. Suddenly, lightning strikes one tree. You’re that tree.’ ”

Okaaay. Definitely random.