Please don’t say this to me. Maybe don’t say it to anyone. 

I get the sentiment behind the statement. I do. I understand that it comes from a place of kindness, too. Really good-hearted and kind people say this, and I still love you if you’ve said this to me, or said this to anyone, because I see your goodness, but it also shows an inherent belief you hold that you know better. 

Being in a place of grief is also a place of vulnerability. When someone says to me, “everything happens for a reason,” they are also saying, “I have more perspective than you and know more than you.” It also forces the grieving person to consider what possible reason there could be for something so horrible as childhood cancer or death or loss in whatever form it’s taken. It usually implies that things will get better. The whole when-god-closes-a-door-he-opens-a-window thing. Yes, yes fine, if both the door and window were open it would create a horrible draft in heaven or whatever, so one of them needs to be closed, I guess. 

There is a power imbalance in this advice, maybe in all advice. If you believe you can give me advice, you believe you are above me. You believe you know more. In this case, you believe you know the outcome of my currently inescapable sadness. Maybe this isn’t how you see it. Maybe this isn’t at all how you mean it. I understand that too. The problem is that this is how I feel it. I feel small when someone tells me my troubles are part of some greater plan for my overall happiness. 

In the end, someone saying words to me doesn’t really hurt me. You can say whatever you want to me. You can give me advice, even though I don’t love unsolicited advice. I’m just semi-ironically giving out some unsolicited advice of my own: if you want to help people, saying “everything happens for a reason” may not be the way to go. Saying, “I’m sorry, it really sucks this is happening to you,” may be the better option.