Meaning can arrive after an event and still matter deeply. Arrival time does not make it the cause.
After impact
Not everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is a story we build after impact. This is not a cynical dismissal of the story. It is an attempt to place it where human courage can actually be seen.
When something terrible happens, people repair what can be repaired. They care for one another, create rituals, change laws, establish foundations, tell the truth, or carry a memory forward. Chaos happens first. Meaning is usually the repair crew.
Meaning need not have arranged the damage
A later good does not require that the earlier harm was scheduled to produce it. That claim can make suffering sound like a tool and can burden a grieving person with the job of discovering an assigned lesson.
We can honor what people build without saying the loss was necessary. Meaning may be human-made. That does not make it worthless. Human-made bridges still carry weight.
A modest conclusion
Everything happens for a reason is often hindsight putting a name tag on probability. Sometimes we do not know why an event happened. Sometimes the mechanism is known and no larger purpose is established.
What remains is the work people choose next. That work is not evidence that the universe intended the wound. It is evidence that people can respond to one another with imagination, honesty, and care.