Part One
By: Jason R.
I guess I?m just like everyone else, I have good days and I have bad days. I cry through the bad days and laugh through the good ones. Most days I just exist. But then there are some days, I don?t know if I can take it anymore.
You know those days. That day when your favorite cousin tells you his child, the one the doctors said they could never have, has a greater than average chance of being born retarded. That day when you realize that your cousin and his wife do not believe in abortion. That day when your heart seems like its going to burst from the sadness that encompasses your life.
It never ceases to amaze even a skeptic like myself that the human will and the human mind can endure such pain and hardship. Any other species would have given up on life long before suffering the amount of torment that most humans deal with on a daily basis. That?s the magical word isn?t it? The human will.
We all secretly laugh off life?s little misfortunes. We claim allegiance to one form of god or another. Even going as far as offering empty platitudes to those that have suffered a loss. We pretend, as a society, that we?re happy for those who pass, saying, ?He was in so much pain, he?s better off with the angels.? But isn?t that just a lie?
I?m not saying we aren?t happy. I?m saying we?re happy for a completely different reason then we show the world. Aren?t we really ?happy? it?s not us lying in that expensive wooden box with brass covered handles? Isn?t that why we have the party after the funeral? Not to remember the loved one but to express thanks to whichever god we serve that we made it another day.
We spend a few horrid hours pretending to feel sorrow by eating and drinking, whispering in small circles, telling all the sordid details of that person?s life. Thankful, deep down inside, that we have given death the old heave-ho once again.
Unfortunately, to many of us humans feel that way. Maybe it?s something the collective society breeds into our heads from an early age. Maybe it?s the influence of pop culture that teaches us this manner of mourning?
We?ve all seen the movies. You attend the wake, get drunk out of your mind, and talk about that person in quiet revered tones. Well, I think its all bullshit. And luckily, I learned what it?s really about. And I learned it from the most unlikely of places.
I was raised in a strict religious household. We attended church four times a week. Yes, I said four. Once on Sunday morning for Sunday school, once for Sunday evening services to make sure we all remembered to give money to the church. Once on Wednesday, to drive home the fact that church was the center of the universe and once on Friday, to keep the parents out of the bars and keep the children brainwashed.
It wasn?t the best way to become popular at school let me tell you. Looking back it?s quite ironic that I was one of the most popular students in my High School. I didn?t say I was well liked, I simply said everyone student in that school knew who I was. For good or for ill, I was famous.
We had lots of rules growing up in my household. I won?t take the time to list them all since I wouldn?t want to bore you any further that I already have. But since most of the sports all took place on Friday nights, my father, deemed it blasphemy for any child to attend or play sports. To me, it seemed the church was more concerned with the loss of revenue if all the parents skipped service to attend their kid?s game. Do I sound bitter? Because I am.
I had twelve years of torture and abuse from the other students because I never wore the proper clothing. No jeans for me, nope, I was lucky. I got to wear a suit every day to school. And don?t think for a moment I attended an exclusive private school, I know some of you were headed into that direction. I went to a normal everyday High School in Menlo Park California. If only Menlo Park had a Christian school back then, but also it did not.
Years later my parents would blame the public school for all the ?trouble? I got myself into. Or they would blame my Uncle Malcolm, saying he had been nothing but a bad influence on my young fragile mind. (my uncle believed in free will and taught me to follow my dreams no matter what the world threw at me)
Just thinking back on my childhood makes my blood boil, and brings an unquenchable rage rising to the surface from the core of my being. Should I hate my parents for raising me in this manner? I did, for years I hated them. Hatred so strong my anger consumed me until the very thought of my parents had me fantasizing about the horrific deaths I could inflict upon them.
I didn?t want to be different. I wanted to be just like ?Billy? or ?Tommy? or countless other little boys that did all the things I could never do. Yet, little did I know that my quest for normalcy or to be the same as everyone else, would take me down a road seldom traveled by ?normal people?. I look back and smile at life?s little irony.
I have to admit I bought into the ?whole god thing? pretty much hook-line-and-sinker. Until the tender age of thirteen, I said my prayers each night. All I wanted to do was save the ?sinners? from their evilness, and their inevitable descent into hell. This attitude never helped my already legendary image at school, no one likes a ?bible thumper?, especially a twelve-year-old one at that.
What happened to change me you ask? I discovered the forbidden fruit. I discovered, which to the day my father died refused to admit or talk about. (when asked of my parents what happened to their only son I?ve heard they reply by saying I died in a horrible car accident) Nice parents huh? But don?t get mad at them, hate the disease not the person. That makes me laugh, my father always quoted that while I was growing up. I guess it?s a saying of, do as I say not as I do kind of thing.
Oh fuck, he was wrong. I did listen when I was a child.
Too bad he never followed his own advice. Not only did he hate the disease but he also hated me as well, and was convinced to the day he died that I was going to hell. I know, I say this with such casualness. But you must look at it from my point of view, I don?t believe in hell.
To Be Continued
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