your heartbeat put you on the roster and then the rest of it was just a question of vocabulary : the nouns and verbs used to describe the events that rocked your foundation and sent you flailing were not always the same as other people 's , but the random cruelties of disease and accident , and the malicious focus of evil men and nasty deeds , and the heartbreak of loss with all its stinging whips and rattling chains ... at the core , it was all the same .