Journal

two days after last quarter
august 14, 2001 ~ 5:00 p.m.

Fucking christ, two deaths in one summer, it's really too much. But at least this time it was my mom's side of the family.

I didn't really even know him even though he was my cousin. I could probably count the number of times I've seen him on one hand, and the last time was at least six years ago. It still hit me though, and when my aunt, his mother, described to all of us what it was like watching him die, I started to cry. He died of an asthma attack, brought on by the heat and the pollution. Another fucking reason to want clean air. I never thought I'd know someone who would die because of pollution.

The funeral was really weird, and I suppose that's only because I haven't been to a traditional one since I was five. Since then it's only been two Quaker memorial services, which are completely different than Christian funerals. The ministers went on and on about how he's in a better place, how he's with God, how God just decided to call him early. What bullshit. Ok, the thing about heaven, yeah, I don't know for sure and I certainly think it's fine to believe that if you want to, but to believe that God would "call him early" is almost offensive to me. What kind of selfish fucking god would cause all that suffering on purpose? If God really just "called him early", He's a murderer. This was a fucking accident. And I'd sure as hell rather believe that than think that God would kill him on purpose. But I have to remember that this was a conservative Lutheran church, a church with a poster on the wall that says "Abortion ends a life".

I didn't even realize before how religious and right-wing his family is. They've got Christian books and magazines all over the place and they talk about it all the time, and I know it's not just because of what had happened. His sister had a bumper sticker on her car that said "Pray to end abortion". That doesn't even make any sense - there's no way abortion will ever end, regardless of its legality or anything else, and if God was really against abortion, why would we even have to pray to end it?

Anyway, the next day at the burial the minister was talking all about how whoever believes in Christ will live forever, and reading passages about it from the new testament. It really bothered me that all there is are these Christian prayers that I don't agree with, which are beautiful but mean nothing to me, and that I had nothing to say to myself. So I recited a quote in my head from FOXFIRE that seemed applicable:

"'--So you don't believe we have souls I guess?' and Legs laughed and said, 'Yeah probably we do but why's that mean we're gonna last forever? Like a flame is real enough, isn't it, while it's burning?--even if there's a time it goes out?'"

previous ~ next

Diaryland