Wendi M, Megs78 said what I was going to say: Most people are good, so the chances of something happening to good people are high. I think we can't see bad things as punishment. Accidents happen (I was in an accident in which a young woman who wasn't hurt killed my girlfriend). I have no idea if it was a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or if some higher power had some reason to end her young life but spare mine. Illness happens. Sometimes it happens because of people's lifestyles. Sometimes it happens to people "who haven't done a thing to bring it on". My sister-in-law lost her 20-month child to an infection that doesn't even make other people all that sick. Both my mother and my father-in-law went through losing both feet after having congestive heart failure; so not only did these good and kind people go through such a thing, but my children had to deal with knowing it happened to two of their three living grandparents. This kind of stuff goes on because as long as we're alive there's always the risk of accident or illness, with some stuff being worse than other stuff.
I live my life going by the one, simple, idea that as long as the people remain in good general health nothing else matters much. Everything else we can always deal with. I don't want this come off as a "lecture", because it's only intended to share perspective I've learned the hard way; but to me, the fact that your son is not seriously injured means he was spared the awfulness that comes from so many accidents. I'd take it a step further and see this rotten incident he had as possibly a lesson to him in realizing the importance of not driving when exhausted or upset. He may learn things from this experience that aren't obvious now.
I've done two "stints" in having two limbs in casts, with one involving a little time in a wheelchair. A head injury left me with double vision for a while, and later inability to concentrate to read for months. I had a face full of glass cuts that made me wonder if "my own" face would ever "come back" (it did). Still, I felt incredibly blessed because I was alive, was left with only a slight knee "issue", and had the biggest scar under my hair and turn at my hair line.
With grown kids now, when someone hit my son's car a few times on the highway but he was fine, I saw it as a "blessing" Last year when a young woman bumped into the late model car he'd gotten to replace the one damaged on the highway, and he wasn't hurt, I again saw that as a tremendous "blessing". Even though the new car was covered by insurance, financially both accidents caused issues for my recently graduated son. Still, I saw him as "fortunate" because of that thing I have about "just being happy someone is ok". Unfortunately, I learned all this "perspective" at 20 years old, when my girlfriend was killed, my other close friend's brother died of leukemia at 17, and my father died at 62. The bad thing is that I lost my youthful sense of invincibility too young. The good thing is I've gotten to live my entire adult life a little wiser.
As for "bad" people or people who just don't seem to care about others very much, I think a lot of them got their "bad" stuff when they were children and had a less-than-excellent childhood experience. If not childhood, then later. When people don't give a hoot about others, or when they do "bad" stuff, it's usually because something has happened to them that made them that way. It's not fair that babies are born to parents who don't know how to love them the way parents should love their children. It's not fair that innocent kids are often mistreated (in varying degrees) to the point where they don't grow up to be "good people". The way I see it, accidents and illness are often things that just happen as a part of life (mine didn't have to happen because it was a drunk driver, but some accidents do just happen). When people are damaged enough to turn them "bad" it's usually not something that "just happens". That's something that didn't have to happen. Somehow, that just seems more unjust and unfair to me.
Wendi, your son's accident is so recent you're going to go through a little time of any emotions associated with having that kind of thing happen. I think that's where you are now, and don't presume any of my "input" here will do anything to make you feel any better right now. I thought, though, maybe some little thing or two I've posted may be useful to someone interested in the title of the thread but more removed (by time) from some bad thing that happened to a good person.
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