Why do bad things happen to good people?

I read the above book after my younger brother killed himself at the age of 24. I just couldn’t make sense of why such a sensitive and caring guy would have nothing but unhappiness, bad luck and misfortune in his life and finally decide that he had had enough. Earlier losing another younger brother at the age of 16(I was 21) was horrible, but the suicide was worse because of how guilty we all felt and how tormented about what we could have or should have done. Why do bad things happen to good people? I have always tried to be a good person. My parents are wonderful, giving people. My brothers, like the rest of us, were not perfect or even close to that, but generally were loving young men. The book really helped me see that God(or a higher force if you will) was not to blame for these tragedies; we are created as intelligent, reasoning beings who make our own choices and random horrible events do happen to ALL of us. I say all this because of several reasons. Firstly, I have been overwhelmed by the immense scope of the school attack in Russia. It is unimaginable to me that anyone could hurt a child or really,any another human being. I ache for the victims and all their loved ones who suffered and are suffering now, trying to make sense of an unbelievable tragedy. I’m sure many or most of them are good people who didn’t “deserve” any kind of divine punishment. Thankfully, after my reading, I don’t believe that retribution,except that of the human type, has anything to do with why this occurred. Secondly, the daughter of one of my friends has cancer, diagnosed just last spring. She turned 16 in July and her goal for the summer was to get her driver’s license, which she did. Her grandpa is a long-time and close friend of my father and Karen and I worked together for several summers. We bonded because of the tough job, our attempt to find positives in humor and sharing and our love of our families. Melissa has a type of cancer(a long name that I will not attempt to spell here) that has a 50-50 chance of survival and right now she’s not doing very well. She has been having chemo to try to shrink some inoperable tumors, she has lost her beautiful hair(but not her smile), she has been fighting very low red blood cell counts and is on her second blood transfusion. The only and most important thing that she is focusing on,besides her health, is that she desperately wants to be able to start school this Tuesday with her classmates. (Note to my children: SHUT UP about not wanting to go back to your routine.) I cannot imagine what it would be like to be fighting for your life at the age of 16, when I was only worried about whether my parents would let me use the car. I never even thought about cancer or dying at that age. I don’t now…As a parent, I realize that it is unthinkable to lose a child or TWO like my parents did, it is unfathomable to have to watch a child battling cancer–but it has to be random because the higher being I believe in is not cruel, he is loving and supports us when we are going through these awful times. So, bad things happen to good people and I know that it means that no matter how “good’ I am, bad things can and will also happen to me.