Before I begin, I want to make things clear. I am an atheist. I do not believe in God, or any other religious deity. I know this offends many people, but my beliefs are my own and I do not feel guilty for them.
Maybe it’s because I am too literal minded, but I cannot make myself believe in something that cannot be experienced by any of the senses, and which has no proof. Don’t even bother with telling me that the bible is proof because the bible is a book that was recorded and written by man, and has since been altered over the years. Not to mention, like any book, its meaning can be interpreted different ways, depending on the person and situation. Not to say that it doesn’t make some very valid and useful points, but so does a cookbook and you don’t see me kneeling down and praying to that every night.
Don’t lecture me, for you don’t know how much I wish I could believe in a god, but I just cannot make myself do it. I want to believe that there is something other than this life that we’re living, a reason for going through all the pain and heartache that comes along with life. I just can’t do it; which makes losing people and working through the grief harder that it may have been otherwise.
I was lucky when I was growing up in the fact that I didn’t lose many people that I was close to and my family remained mostly intact. My grandmother passed away when I was two and a half years old, and a couple of sick and elderly great-grandparents passed on as well. Shortly after I turned eighteen, that all changed, and life decided that I had been coasting for long enough now and it was time to feel the pain of grieving.
Without going into too much detail in this initial post- perhaps I’ll go into more detail at a later date- I will outline the events of the past few years. What you do need to know is that I grew up in a small farming community, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and their business. It can be a bad thing, but it also means that when the going gets tough, the community bands together and supports each other. That’s why I am proud to remain a country girl at heart.
It started at the beginning of October 2007 when my mom’s father got sick, and by Halloween, he was gone. It seemed to be a snowball effect from there. One of my (step)dad’s good trucking buddies died of lung cancer, passing away mere hours before his son made it to the hospital to say goodbye, but Rob wanted it that way. My (step)dad’s father was diagnosed with cancer a couple of months later. We watched him struggle and waste away for a year and a half before he finally succumbed to his disease. In January of 2009, two of my former classmates were killed in a car accident; one of them was a cousin of my best friend. Two weeks later, I got the call that forever changed my life; Carissa too had died in a collision. By the end of that year, a young girl from my town committed suicide, and two more young people died. We rounded that year out by burying my (step)dad’s grandmother. This year has been no exception. In March, my cousin died in a snowmobile accident, my brother lost two good friends in the same night, another young boy died two weeks later, my father lost another trucking friend to lung cancer and a classmate just recently committed suicide. And, the same day I moved to begin my new life in a new town, my father’s father, my grandfather passed away. It was the worst way to start a new life.
I cannot wrap myself around all of these deaths, especially the ones that involved the young people who were healthy, and had so much more to live for. How can I believe in a god who takes these amazing people, but leaves behind murders and thieves and pedophiles and sexual predators? It makes no sense to me that these people are allowed to live while good people are dying every day. There is nothing to be learned by losing my best friend, except for the fact that I can endure a great amount of grief and sorrow and come out alive. I could have done without that lesson for another fifty or so years, thanks anyways.
I’m beginning to heal and cope with the enormous amount of pain and loss that I have experienced in a short amount of time. And know who’s helping me through it? Friends and family. Not a god or some other imaginary being. It’s by the support of those who love me and my own stubbornness and determination to make them all proud that I am going forward with my life and making something of myself. There is no god guiding me along any path. I am following my heart and my head and making decisions based on past experiences and the knowledge of what I want in my life. I want to be happy and in love some day- another concept I’m not fully sure I will ever get to enjoy, but that too can be saved for a later day. In the end, the only one who is going to get me to the end point of where I want to end up in life, and once it’s all said and done, and my time on earth comes to a close, I want those left behind to be able to look back and smile through the tears. I want to be a good person, atheist or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment