If Karma is real what do you have to do to deserve this

[Tiny]

This is probably behind a paywall.   I'm guessing you can find info on Brigitte Gerney (she died this year). in other places.    

If Karma is real - I have to wonder what this woman did to deserve all the adversity and heartbreak in her life...     

It's like someone cursed her --  with "an interesting life".      

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/22/magazine/brigitte-gerney-death.html

From the article (my highlights bolded -  to help keep track of the timeline of awful events)   

On May 30, 1985, Brigitte Gerney was going to take a taxi home from the dentist, but it was such a beautiful spring day that she decided to walk. The dentist’s office was on East 69th Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Gerney lived near the United Nations, some 20 blocks south. She was walking by a construction site on the west side of Third Avenue, a little before noon, when she heard people screaming for her to get out of the way. She tried to run. But it was already too late. Gerney would later describe it feeling like an earthquake. Her bag went flying out of her hands and the pavement cracked beneath her. She noticed how cold the 35 tons of metal felt on top of her.

Gerney, who was 49 at the time of the accident, was born in Liechtenstein, a tiny German-speaking country between Austria and Switzerland. The crane wasn’t the worst thing that happened to her since she arrived in New York in 1966. She lost her first son in 1973 when he fell into a pool and drowned. In 1980, she survived lung cancer. In 1982, a gondola she was riding in at a ski resort detached and plummeted to the ground. A year later, her husband died of colon cancer. Somehow, Gerney never collapsed under the weight of the misfortunes that befell her. “Something about her nature allowed her to bend in this howling wind and not break,” K. Ann McDonald, a family friend, told me. “She was sort of weather-beaten in a good way.”

Gerney would undergo 13 operations in total.

A year after the accident (1986), Gerney met and fell in love with Peter Rizzo, an orthopedic surgeon. They got engaged. But before they could marry, Rizzo was shot and killed in 1987 by a retired New York City firefighter, who was angry about a delayed medical-disability claim.

The crane permanently damaged Gerney’s body. She walked with a limp and chronic pain affected her hips and spine. Muscle had to be taken from her back to rebuild her calf. She never could flex one ankle. “She had to learn how to walk from scratch because they weren’t the same legs,” her daughter, Nina, said. Gerney died as a result of heart failure related to Alzheimer’s dementia. But in her last days, when she would still use those legs to take walks in her garden, Nina told me, the memories that flickered back never included the bad things that happened to her — only the good.

[Tiny]

And yes, this woman's life made me feel bad about all my whinging about the "first world problems" I have in real life.

I need to keep working on being a better person. The road is long and the journey even longer.

[dondub]

Dec 28, 2021 16:59:57 GMT -5 Tiny said:

And yes, this woman's life made me feel bad about all my whinging about the "first world problems" I have in real life.

I need to keep working on being a better person. The road is long and the journey even longer.

I’m rooting for you tiny!😎

[Tennesseer]

Fate put a lot on this woman's plate.  Too much.

[NoNamePerson]

She noticed how cold the 35 tons of metal felt on top of her.

I'm surprised she lived after having 35 tons of metal on top of her. Seems to me with all she has endured she spit in Karma's eye. 

[Artemis Windsong]

If you are a person who believes in reincarnation or the past life continuing in the current life, this karma may have come from another lifetime.

[Opti]

I have chosen to believe more in reincarnation than karma. I think it makes more sense than one shot at life, and also gives our souls more time to perfect who we are. There is a concept by whom I don't remember, that the current life is a reflection of the past. That one would experience being a victim if one was an abuser, or how to be a abuser if one was a victim of one last time. There is the concept of life lessons.

There are some things you can not learn by living a comfortable or even simple life. Some believe the soul even picks lessons to learn in its next life before being born in a new body. Your example of course is hard-core. 

Here's two URL's one on some religions that include reincarnation -

www.reference.com/world-view/religions-believe-reincarnation-1612eefce425b8a9

Religions that believe in reincarnation include:



Hinduism

In Hinduism, the jiva is the soul and it lives through multiple lives. Although it is pure by default, people can alter this through the way they behave in each life. Karma affects the experience someone’s jiva has in their next life.



Jainism

Jainism has a similar take to Hinduism on reincarnation. If someone behaves well, they attract good karma and have a happy experience during their next life. In contrast, someone who leads a bad life is said to have a desire to experience cruelty in the next one.



Buddhism

Buddhism does not believe that people have a new form of consciousness with each life. Instead, it sees moving between lives as a continuum of one existence to the next. Unlike other mainstream religions, it does not see the reincarnation as a new person.



Sikhism

Sikhism believes that the soul passes into new bodies when a person dies. This is a process that continues until Liberation.

And one that does not-

www.quran-islam.org/articles/reincarnation_theory_(P1170).html#:~:text=Once%20again%20this%20verse%20points%20to%20the%20fact,some%20to%20believe%20in%20such%20multiple%20life%20theories.

Reincarnation is refuted by all the main Monotheistic religions of the world. The reason for this is that it is against their basic teachings of a finite life for the human upon which he/she is judged and rewarded accordingly. If the human is to go through numerous lives, on which life is he/she to be judged? The first life? The last life? The Holy Quran, the last and proven word of God, unequivocally rejects this false religion of reincarnation.



Numerous Quranic verses confirm this position regarding the reincarnation concept, they can be classified as follows:



First : The 'barzakh' (barrier)



When death comes to one of them, he says, "My Lord, send me back so that I may do good deeds regarding what I have neglected." But no! This is just a word he utters. A 'barzakh' (barrier) lies behind them until the Day they are resurrected. 23:99-100

The above words confirm that when a person dies, God takes his/her soul while he is still in the process of imploring God for another chance. As soon as the human dies a barrier is immediately in place. This barrier prevents his/her soul from returning to earth. This barrier is maintained until the Day of Resurrection.

[Opti]

Dec 28, 2021 16:59:57 GMT -5 Tiny said:

And yes, this woman's life made me feel bad about all my whinging about the "first world problems" I have in real life.

I need to keep working on being a better person. The road is long and the journey even longer.

There are so many aspects to live on all of this. One of my XH's friends, for whatever reason, seemed to attract people driving the would literally cross into opposite lanes or concrete barriers to hit him. 

This can be a deep subject, but not one I feel like parsing on a message board. People's beliefs can influence what happens to them. If you believe they won't hire you, you are usually right. If you believe you are going to escape or survive, you are usually right. It gets more complex.

[Opti]

Dec 28, 2021 19:08:17 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Fate put a lot on this woman's plate.  Too much.

Some are chosen, and some choose to be a match. Not too long ago IDA flooded NYC and NJ with historic floods. Some people chose to drive through big water, and some drowned. Others were in basement apts or homes that would flood. Most made it out and lost much, and some did not get out in time. 

[NoNamePerson]

Dec 29, 2021 10:49:16 GMT -5 Opti said:

Dec 28, 2021 19:08:17 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Fate put a lot on this woman's plate.  Too much.

Some are chosen, and some choose to be a match. Not too long ago IDA flooded NYC and NJ with historic floods. Some people chose to drive through big water, and some drowned. Others were in basement apts or homes that would flood. Most made it out and lost much, and some did not get out in time. 

I just believe in predestination and shit happens