Dear God,
I know there are starving children in the world and probably a lot of people out there who are more in need of your help than me, but I figured I would put in my request now, to give you a few days to mull it over and decide whether or not you'd like to grant my prayer or not. You know, it's not super-urgent, but maybe you could assign it "yellow" status like the Department of Homeland Security does regarding terror threats. Just trying to help you prioritize...
As you already know, next week is my fourth attempt at the Bar exam. I figure you already know this being all-seeing-all-knowing and everything. And considering all of the Catholic candle-lighting Husband did earlier this year...I figured you must have gotten the hint or whatever. Now I know you have an ultimate plan for all of us, and you make your decisions for reasons I may not understand. I know you don't owe me any kind of explaination. I get it. But seriously...could you see to it that my brain remembers everything I've tried to cram into it over the last few months (again), and allow me to keep my cool and not have to take 2 Xanax before the exam because I'm freaking out, and could you also help me write fast and concise, not be tricked into picking the wrong answer on the multiple choice exam, and...this one is the most important...PLEASE LET ME PASS SO I CAN MOVE ON WITH MY LIFE? Please, God?
Oh, and if I could win the Mega Millions too, sometime soon, preferably, that would be cool. I promise to give a bunch of it to charity. Really. So, you know -- either that or the Bar exam thing. I'd settle for either one.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Look It Up and Be In Wonder Of God's Miracles...
Last night I was flipping through the channels look for something to watch. I really wanted to watch Scrubs, but WGN is still showing the episodes I’ve seen 400 times. When I saw that last night, I wanted to go off on my rant again, but at this point, why bother? It’s obvious they haven’t read my strongly worded letter yet.
Because of the WGN situation, I was forced to check my standby stations. Some of my standby channels are: VH1 (which was showing Daisy of Love or Charm School – and while I’m usually a sucker for both of these shows, I’ve sworn off Daisy of Love because not only is Daisy annoying as fuck, but the guys they picked for her are even more annoying than she is. I’ve also decided not to watch Charm School, because half the girls are from Real Chance at Love and I didn’t watch that one. Plus, I’ve over the whole Charm School concept, after tuning into the first one with Monique). Anyways, since VH1 came up snakeyes, I tried the Food Network, Biography Channel, BBC America, Discovery Channel, TLC and QVC. All were showing nothing I was overly interested in. I was left to surfing the remaining channels, in the hopes I could find something.
I came across the Farrah Fawcett documentary (“Farrah’s Story”) on her battle with cancer on Bravo. As a little kid, I was a Farrah fan. I watched “Charlie’s Angels” and I even had one of those busts of Farrah where you could style her beautiful feathered hair and put makeup on her. I know they still make these types of toys – although certainly not Farrah anymore. Today they’re some Bratz incarnation where the doll looks like a whore instead of a wholesome, All-American cheerleader in the form of feathered-haired-perfect-teeth-beautifully-blonde Farrah.
I remember getting the Farrah bust for Christmas one year and nearly dying over it because I loved playing with it. I also remember being super pissed at my mom that year because she made me share it with her boyfriend du jour and his two daughters, who I swear, fucked up Farrah’s hair. Or used all of the purple eyeshadow, or some other heinous crime. Anyway—I’m getting away from the topic at hand.
I decided to watch a bit of the documentary because I was curious. Howard Stern had been talking about it all week last week – his comments were specifically on how it’s sad how Farrah is dying of cancer, and he wondered on why someone would want to film the battle in all its graphic detail. He wondered if she was so hungry for fame, that she’d stoop to filming her horrific battle for a last morsel of attention. I doubted that she filmed it because of a sick quest for fame – I believe she filmed it because it’s something that no one has done before, or at least no one famous and in such a graphic manner. I’m pretty sure she wanted to show how cancer attacks and makes you a shell of the person you once were. At one point in the documentary, her voiceover was talking about how cancer robbed her of the life she used to have – the life that she took for granted, and how much she wanted to fight to get that life back so she could appreciated it this time around.
I didn’t watch the whole thing because I ended up going to bed around midnight and there was still an hour left. But I have to admit, it affected me – and not for the obvious reasons. Yes, Farrah Fawcett has a special place in my childhood, and yes, her battle with cancer is both fascinating and heartbreaking. But what affected me was that it reminded me of the battle my mom had with a disease called Amyloidosis. My mom sort of looks like Farrah Fawcett – she’s a beautiful petite, blue-eyed, blonde with a pretty smile – which is what first made me think of her while watching Farrah’s story. Amyloidosis is a very rare blood disease that is treated in a number of ways – mainly with chemotherapy. My mom found out she had this disease during my first year of law school. She got very sick, and was in the hospital for months. She underwent chemotherapy, lost a bunch of weight (she was already thin to begin with, but probably got down to about 100 lbs.), lost a lot of her beautiful, thick blonde hair, and also underwent a stem cell transplant. Most people don’t even know they have amyloidosis until it’s too late, because the symptoms usually point to other problems. For example, with my mom, it started with her ankles swelling up. The doctors all thought something was wrong with her liver, and she underwent a million tests on her liver (with the final one being a biopsy). Nope, no cancer…but finally one of the doctors recognized it was amyloidosis.
What I remember most during her diagnosis and treatment was all of the stress I was under. I know it sounds selfish, but picture this – I started law school when Daughter was 8 months old. By January of that first school year, my mom was in the hospital. She was the primary person that was helping with Daughter, because Husband was a new father and like all new fathers, was a bit of a dipshit when it came to babies. I couldn’t really visit my mom all that much in the hospital, because I was working full-time during the day, went to classes Monday-Thursday evenings, and then tried to study and do all of my homework on the weekends (besides still trying to be a mom and wife). Plus, because of the chemo and stem cell transplant, my mom was uber-sensitive to germs, and we all know babies who go to daycare are germ factories. So it was probably best I didn’t visit her, in case I was incubating some germ that would kill her.
She got out of the hospital in March, and then was basically under house arrest for 90 days. She wasn’t really allowed to got out in public, again for fear that germy people would expose her to a cold or something, which would be fatal. Through the whole thing, I did talk to her on the phone a lot, and she sort of lost her marbles for a time being. She talked a lot about God, and how she was going to survive and all of that. She really did have a great mental attitude, even if she was a little bit loopy (seriously, she was kind of spooky-crazy. Difficult to describe, just trust me on this one.) Of course, she tried to mask the seriousness of her condition from me, because she’s a mom and that’s what mom’s do. They try and protect you from the truth and try to make you not afraid. By then, though, I was a grown woman and therefore, not stupid or immune to the seriousness of her condition. I mean, come on, mom. I’m just one of those people who keeps all fear and emotions bottled up. So just because I’m not balling my eyes out or babbling on over how scared I am, doesn’t mean I’m not scared shitless that you’re gonna die and not see your granddaughter grow up. I just choose to stick my head in the sand and not face it until it’s absolutely necessary.
And in case you’re wondering – my mom is definitely 100% cured, even though every now and then she gets scared that amyloidosis is going to come back (or that the damage it caused to her liver and heart will become serious). She’s gained back the weight she lost and pretty much looks the same as she did before she got sick. The only real difference, which is not really noticeable to the outside world, is that her hair is so much thinner now. Like I described, her hair was so thick (I mean, I’ve never known anyone to have such thick hair as she did) and it was so blonde and pretty. I always envied her blonde hair (I have to highlight mine to get it anywhere near blonde, whereas hers was natural). Although she doesn’t have a bald spot or anything, if you touch her hair now, it’s baby fine and thin. It makes me think of Farrah and her world-renowned blonde hair, and how much it was her identify, and now, in her last stages of cancer, she’s probably bald. Oh, the sad irony.
Anywhoosit, from what I understand, most people die from amyoidosis, because it attacks your organs (with my mom it started in her liver, damaging that along with her heart). People much older and weaker than my mom find out they have it – thus cannot survive the aggressive treatment of chemotherapy or the stem cell transplant, and instead just take medications that treat the symptoms and not the disease – and then die not too long after their diagnosis. However, 6 years ago, my mom was 48 and was determined to treat it with the most aggressive means. I also know that most people do not survive amyloidosis after five years, but this summer will by my mom’s 6th year being totally “cured”. She is a walking miracle. And in case I ever forget this tidbit – she reminds me all the time. As an example, I texted her while I was writing this because I couldn’t remember the name of the disease:
Me: What was the name of your disease again? I forget.
Mom: Amyloidosis. Rare blood disease. Look it up and be in wonder of God’s miracles.
Yeah. So, y’all. Look it up and be in wonder of God’s miracles. Sorry, I’m being sarcastic here, even though I really am thankful to God that she survived the disease in order to torture me on a daily basis with The Crazy. Really. I swear.
Because of the WGN situation, I was forced to check my standby stations. Some of my standby channels are: VH1 (which was showing Daisy of Love or Charm School – and while I’m usually a sucker for both of these shows, I’ve sworn off Daisy of Love because not only is Daisy annoying as fuck, but the guys they picked for her are even more annoying than she is. I’ve also decided not to watch Charm School, because half the girls are from Real Chance at Love and I didn’t watch that one. Plus, I’ve over the whole Charm School concept, after tuning into the first one with Monique). Anyways, since VH1 came up snakeyes, I tried the Food Network, Biography Channel, BBC America, Discovery Channel, TLC and QVC. All were showing nothing I was overly interested in. I was left to surfing the remaining channels, in the hopes I could find something.
I came across the Farrah Fawcett documentary (“Farrah’s Story”) on her battle with cancer on Bravo. As a little kid, I was a Farrah fan. I watched “Charlie’s Angels” and I even had one of those busts of Farrah where you could style her beautiful feathered hair and put makeup on her. I know they still make these types of toys – although certainly not Farrah anymore. Today they’re some Bratz incarnation where the doll looks like a whore instead of a wholesome, All-American cheerleader in the form of feathered-haired-perfect-teeth-beautifully-blonde Farrah.
I remember getting the Farrah bust for Christmas one year and nearly dying over it because I loved playing with it. I also remember being super pissed at my mom that year because she made me share it with her boyfriend du jour and his two daughters, who I swear, fucked up Farrah’s hair. Or used all of the purple eyeshadow, or some other heinous crime. Anyway—I’m getting away from the topic at hand.
I decided to watch a bit of the documentary because I was curious. Howard Stern had been talking about it all week last week – his comments were specifically on how it’s sad how Farrah is dying of cancer, and he wondered on why someone would want to film the battle in all its graphic detail. He wondered if she was so hungry for fame, that she’d stoop to filming her horrific battle for a last morsel of attention. I doubted that she filmed it because of a sick quest for fame – I believe she filmed it because it’s something that no one has done before, or at least no one famous and in such a graphic manner. I’m pretty sure she wanted to show how cancer attacks and makes you a shell of the person you once were. At one point in the documentary, her voiceover was talking about how cancer robbed her of the life she used to have – the life that she took for granted, and how much she wanted to fight to get that life back so she could appreciated it this time around.
I didn’t watch the whole thing because I ended up going to bed around midnight and there was still an hour left. But I have to admit, it affected me – and not for the obvious reasons. Yes, Farrah Fawcett has a special place in my childhood, and yes, her battle with cancer is both fascinating and heartbreaking. But what affected me was that it reminded me of the battle my mom had with a disease called Amyloidosis. My mom sort of looks like Farrah Fawcett – she’s a beautiful petite, blue-eyed, blonde with a pretty smile – which is what first made me think of her while watching Farrah’s story. Amyloidosis is a very rare blood disease that is treated in a number of ways – mainly with chemotherapy. My mom found out she had this disease during my first year of law school. She got very sick, and was in the hospital for months. She underwent chemotherapy, lost a bunch of weight (she was already thin to begin with, but probably got down to about 100 lbs.), lost a lot of her beautiful, thick blonde hair, and also underwent a stem cell transplant. Most people don’t even know they have amyloidosis until it’s too late, because the symptoms usually point to other problems. For example, with my mom, it started with her ankles swelling up. The doctors all thought something was wrong with her liver, and she underwent a million tests on her liver (with the final one being a biopsy). Nope, no cancer…but finally one of the doctors recognized it was amyloidosis.
What I remember most during her diagnosis and treatment was all of the stress I was under. I know it sounds selfish, but picture this – I started law school when Daughter was 8 months old. By January of that first school year, my mom was in the hospital. She was the primary person that was helping with Daughter, because Husband was a new father and like all new fathers, was a bit of a dipshit when it came to babies. I couldn’t really visit my mom all that much in the hospital, because I was working full-time during the day, went to classes Monday-Thursday evenings, and then tried to study and do all of my homework on the weekends (besides still trying to be a mom and wife). Plus, because of the chemo and stem cell transplant, my mom was uber-sensitive to germs, and we all know babies who go to daycare are germ factories. So it was probably best I didn’t visit her, in case I was incubating some germ that would kill her.
She got out of the hospital in March, and then was basically under house arrest for 90 days. She wasn’t really allowed to got out in public, again for fear that germy people would expose her to a cold or something, which would be fatal. Through the whole thing, I did talk to her on the phone a lot, and she sort of lost her marbles for a time being. She talked a lot about God, and how she was going to survive and all of that. She really did have a great mental attitude, even if she was a little bit loopy (seriously, she was kind of spooky-crazy. Difficult to describe, just trust me on this one.) Of course, she tried to mask the seriousness of her condition from me, because she’s a mom and that’s what mom’s do. They try and protect you from the truth and try to make you not afraid. By then, though, I was a grown woman and therefore, not stupid or immune to the seriousness of her condition. I mean, come on, mom. I’m just one of those people who keeps all fear and emotions bottled up. So just because I’m not balling my eyes out or babbling on over how scared I am, doesn’t mean I’m not scared shitless that you’re gonna die and not see your granddaughter grow up. I just choose to stick my head in the sand and not face it until it’s absolutely necessary.
And in case you’re wondering – my mom is definitely 100% cured, even though every now and then she gets scared that amyloidosis is going to come back (or that the damage it caused to her liver and heart will become serious). She’s gained back the weight she lost and pretty much looks the same as she did before she got sick. The only real difference, which is not really noticeable to the outside world, is that her hair is so much thinner now. Like I described, her hair was so thick (I mean, I’ve never known anyone to have such thick hair as she did) and it was so blonde and pretty. I always envied her blonde hair (I have to highlight mine to get it anywhere near blonde, whereas hers was natural). Although she doesn’t have a bald spot or anything, if you touch her hair now, it’s baby fine and thin. It makes me think of Farrah and her world-renowned blonde hair, and how much it was her identify, and now, in her last stages of cancer, she’s probably bald. Oh, the sad irony.
Anywhoosit, from what I understand, most people die from amyoidosis, because it attacks your organs (with my mom it started in her liver, damaging that along with her heart). People much older and weaker than my mom find out they have it – thus cannot survive the aggressive treatment of chemotherapy or the stem cell transplant, and instead just take medications that treat the symptoms and not the disease – and then die not too long after their diagnosis. However, 6 years ago, my mom was 48 and was determined to treat it with the most aggressive means. I also know that most people do not survive amyloidosis after five years, but this summer will by my mom’s 6th year being totally “cured”. She is a walking miracle. And in case I ever forget this tidbit – she reminds me all the time. As an example, I texted her while I was writing this because I couldn’t remember the name of the disease:
Me: What was the name of your disease again? I forget.
Mom: Amyloidosis. Rare blood disease. Look it up and be in wonder of God’s miracles.
Yeah. So, y’all. Look it up and be in wonder of God’s miracles. Sorry, I’m being sarcastic here, even though I really am thankful to God that she survived the disease in order to torture me on a daily basis with The Crazy. Really. I swear.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Losing My Religion
(WARNING: This post is extremely long.)
I have never been a very religious person. Much like the rest of my childhood, my religious education has been quite eclectic, you could say.
I wasn’t baptized as a baby, like most babies. No, I was baptized Catholic at the ripe old age of six. This came about in a very strange and unfortunate way. My mom had an older sister, Helen who had three daughters. I speak in the past tense, because Helen was murdered by her second husband in 1991 when she was 36. And I speak in the past tense about her three daughters, because when I was six, her youngest daughter, Theresa, died from pneumonia (she was three). Apparently, Theresa wasn’t baptized as a baby either, because when she died, my mother, grandmother and Aunt Helen must have collectively shit their pants in a panic that Theresa was going to purgatory or something because that’s when my two cousins and I were finally baptized. I always thought that Catholicism had all of these rules you had to follow regarding getting baptized and all of that – but I am thinking that there are no prerequisites regarding baptisms, because it just happened. My maternal grandmother belonged to a Catholic Church at the time (I don’t remember the name, but I do know the church is long gone, because I had to request my baptism records from the Archdiocese of Detroit when I was getting married). So, I was baptized Catholic along with my two cousins. I don’t really remember much from it other than the matching dresses we all wore (yes, clothes have always been important to me) and that I got some water sprinkled on my head. I also remember the church as big and old-looking – it was probably one of those really old, beautiful Catholic Churches they just don’t build anymore. *sigh*
My Catholic education ended that day at the baptism, because I never really ended up going to a Catholic church very often, and never attend catechism classes. I never had an official First Communion, Confirmation, or any of the other stuff you get to do as a Catholic Kid. For some reason, even today, I feel cheated. But, that doesn’t mean, my religious education ended…oh, no.
When I was 8, living with my parents, they rented a house across a major freeway from a Baptist Church. Somehow they found out that the this church had a bus that picked the kids up for Sunday School and delivered them to church the hour prior to the lecture (or whatever you call it in the Baptist religion. I want to call it “Mass” but I know that’s Catholic). Every Sunday, the church bus would pick me up and take me to Sunday School. This is primarily where I learned about religion. I remember making little craft-type things in Sunday School, and singing “The B-I-B-L-E, that’s the book for me, I stand alone with the word of God…the B-I-B-L-E!” You get the picture. I liked Sunday School, but hated the lecture part of it. And the bus driver obviously was part of the congregation, so it’s not like he was going to drop the kids off until mass was over. And my parents weren’t going to church (funny how I had to go, but they stayed home, isn’t it?), so I had to sit through the lecture for an hour. Some days were kind of exciting, like when someone was getting baptized…because these people took a swim in a massive dunk tank. No sprinkle of water in this church. No, Baptists go all out and wash away your sins with a full-body bath.
Once in a while I got into trouble with the activities I did to pass the time during the lecture. Like the time I brought my cousin, Michael with me. Michael and I – he was about 6 months younger than me – we somehow got on the subject of trying to think up as many swear words as we could. We started writing them down in the little notebook I kept in my purse. (I’m sure you see where this story is going). Well, here’s a couple of 8-year-olds writing down swear words like “Motherfucker” and “Shit” in a notepad IN CHURCH. A while later my parents went through my purse and found my list of swear words, and my dad beat the living shit out of me with a ping-pong paddle. It was one of the major spankings of my life. My mom and I joked about it a few weeks ago, actually, and I told her about how I was with Michael (he’s also passed away now…he died when he was 20 in a motorcycle accident) and how we were just trying to pass the time since the lecture was boring to us. We both kinda laughed about it – especially considering the inappropriateness of it, you know -- being in church. But geez. Kids do dumb shit and really don’t think about how appropriate it is, now do they?
Sometime in the next year or so, my parents found religion too, and became “Born Again”. Whatever that means. We had moved out of the house across the freeway from the Baptist Church, but we never attended church as a family. My parents just ended up watching televangelists and thought that was good enough, I guess. I remember watching the shows with Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, Kenneth Copeland, and even the PTL with Pat Robertson. I guess TV church is better than no church.
That phase only lasted a little while. In the meantime, my religious education practically stopped. I did go to church services here and there at Easter and Christmas – I’ve been to non-denominational churches, Methodist, Presbyterian…you name it. I’ve probably attended a service there once in my life.
Fast forward now, to 1991, when my Aunt Helen was murdered (and you thought I only told that story to get your attention and not because it was important to the story, didn’t you?) Helen and my mom were only one year apart in age. They were relatively close, and when she was murdered, my mom flipped out a little. I think some of it was due to the fact that she was only a year younger, and the emotional part of realizing your own mortality is kind of scary, and I think some of it was there are probably some things in my mom’s life that she’s done that she’s not proud of – and I’m sure there was also a little part of it that had to do with my dad.
I don’t really talk much about the scary times with my dad, because I choose to keep those memories under wraps. But besides the fact that he’s an alcoholic, he’s also a Vietnam Veteran, and goes to therapy frequently. I know he had a really shitty childhood (his dad used to beat the shit out of him on a regular basis) and I know he’s got his own demons he tries to kill with alcohol (my non-professional opinion). Well, when I was a kid, he was not attending therapy, and the alcoholism was not something that my mom really realized – probably because she was young and didn’t know better. Anyway, I can remember them having horrible arguments throughout my formative years (I’d say maybe from 12-17) when he would stop going to therapy, probably go off his meds, and go out drinking. He’d come home blinding drunk, start some shit with my mom, and then they’d have crazy arguments, with my mom throwing shit around and destroying things (during one argument, my mom cut my dad’s head out of a family portrait and once threw a coffee mug through one of their living room windows). I usually tried to shut these things out, but I remember one particular argument when my maternal grandpa was visiting from Florida (and whom I worshipped and loved to death) – I was about 18. My dad owned a gun and during the argument, he pulled the gun out, and threatened to kill my grandpa along with my mom. I overheard all of this from upstairs, got so scared, that I grabbed my little brother (who was about 8 years old at the time) grabbed the telephone, and went outside to my car. It was like midnight. I called the only person at the time that I could count on – Husband. Husband and I had only been dating about a year, but he rushed over because he was going to protect me. Once he showed up, the situation had already been diffused, but everyone now knew that Husband Knew. Husband Knew How Fucked Up Everything Was. (Now you understand one of the reasons why I love him and need him in my life. He has always protected me, and came like a knight in shining armor to my rescue when I was scared shitless and hysterical. And despite coming from such dysfunction, he married me anyway. He must really love me, huh?)
After the incident mentioned above, my dad went back to therapy and the gun got sold. To this day, there are no weapons in my parents house, and my dad still goes to therapy. I don’t understand why my parents are still together, because frankly, if the man I was married to pulled out a gun and waved it in my face with my kids in the house, I probably would have called the cops, pressed charges, and then divorced him. That shit is called aggravated assault with a deadly weapon! I also don’t know why I didn’t call the police, and the only person I called was Husband. Maybe I was embarrassed, maybe I knew everything would be OK (although, let me tell you, I sure didn’t feel that way at the time), or maybe because this was during a time where people just didn’t do shit like this (like you never heard of someone killing their wives or family or whatever. Times are different now, and this was a couple of years before Helen’s murder). You’re going to laugh, but I think at heart, my dad is a decent person. I just think he has a lot of problems (understatement) and is probably a horribly tortured soul. I don’t think he would have killed anyone that night, because it’s been 20 years since that incident and there’s never been another similar altercation. And while he and my mom still have arguments, I don’t think they’re life threatening. For all the shit she tells me, I know she’d tell me if something like this happened again.
Anyway, you see, this story is important to why I think my mom flipped a little when Helen was killed. She may have seen herself in that coffin. Who knows. My dad wasn’t physically abusive – it was more mental. Helen was stabbed to death, which to me means that her husband must have really been in a rage. She was stabbed all over her body and was left to die on her kitchen floor. He really did a piss-poor job of trying to cover anything up – he was the first and only suspect. He’s currently in prison, in case you were wondering. He was convicted of second-degree murder, and I think got a 20-year sentence (I always thought it should have been first degree murder, but he must have had one helluva lawyer who argued it was heat of passion or something). I imagine he’ll be up for parole soon, if he hasn’t already. I do know he’s still in prison and I really hope he never gets out. Besides being a murderer, he also molested my two cousins for YEARS (the ones who got baptized with me – his stepdaughters – which pretty much fucked them up for life), which was the whole reason for his and Helen’s argument that night. One of my cousins had finally told her, and she confronted him and told him she was divorcing him.
So when Helen died, it was 1991. I was 20. My mom found Jesus, and we started attending an Orthodox church. Which I came to realize pretty soon, was a version of Catholicism. Only the priests are allowed to marry and mass is like an hour and a half, instead of an hour. Really, those are the only really big differences, far as I could tell. By this time, Husband and I had gotten pretty serious about each other, and he mentioned to me that instead of going to the Orthodox Church, I should start going to Catholic Mass with him. Which is what I started doing. We went to mass together for a few years, in the same church we ended up getting married in. I have to say, I liked going to church with him. The church had a band with an electric guitar, and they rocked the house during all of the songs (Imagine the “Hallelujah” or “Hosanna in the Highest” sent to electric guitar with drums). It was, dare I say it – fun. Husband knew my Catholic education was dismal, and that I had never had communion. I remember the very first time I took communion – it was with him, and at his encouragement. He told me that I should do it, and the fact that I hadn’t had a “First Communion” didn’t matter. But I thought there were rules? Just go! And in that church, in that pew, he showed me what to do when I went up there (“and don’t forget to say “Amen” when he says “Body of Christ”!). Like I said, I’ll never forget it. Like many of my firsts in life, he was there to see it.
After we got married, our church attendance waned, and I can’t say we’re regular church-goers. We’re bad Catholics. I mean, we don’t even make it for Easter or Christmas. Bad, bad Catholics. I did manage to get Daughter baptized – and I need to get my shit together, because she’s going to have to start going to catechism because her First Communion will be next year.
But I must admit, I’m not very religious. I sometimes even wonder if there is a God. I like to think that there is – but to be truthful, I really wonder. I think I am more of a believer, than a non-believer, like maybe 75% of me believes, but then there’s 25% of me that wonders. I still pray occasionally, and I really believe that there’s SOMETHING (maybe God) out there helping us with our journey in life. And I just don’t believe as a just-in-case…you know, just in case there IS a God. I truly believe just because I do. I can’t imagine that life is a random miracle. Although I do believe in evolution, and think most of the stories in the bible are akin to allegories…meant more to teach lessons, and less as Actual Stories of Real Events.
The whole point of this post, is that lately – and by lately, I mean in the last couple of months – Husband has seemed to find his religion. Raised in an Italian-Catholic family, Husband had the typical Catholic upbringing. He had a First Communion and a Confirmation, and knows all of the pomp and circumstance that goes along with being Catholic. Which, at times, I am jealous of – because I wish I knew about all of the saints, and understood what transubstantiation meant (actually, I do know what it means, because I looked it up). But you get the idea. I even bought a book a few years back – “The Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Catholicism” because I wanted to know what everything meant.
Husband has started going to Mass (mind you, he goes during the week and doesn’t invite me), regularly, and we also have shrine-like candles lit that burn all day in our bedroom. There’s two of them – one is for me, in the hopes that burning this candle will somehow help me pass the Bar exam – and the other is for his cousin, Anna, who has now undergone her second liver transplant in the past month (her body started rejecting the first liver she received).
Husband has even found a website for St. Anthony, who among other things, is the patron saints of “lost causes”. He put a prayer for me on this website. Nevermind that I find it both offensive and funny that Husband considers me passing the bar exam a “lost cause” and when I mentioned that to him, he basically brushed off the literal meaning and said “It can’t hurt”. But the St. Anthony website also had a novena that you are to recite everyday for nine days – and Husband has printed it for me. I did say the novena this morning before our shrine of candles (and before I blew them out). But I got a text this morning asking me if I remember to say my prayers from Husband (along with a second, rapid-fire text, that also asked me if I remembered to take my vitamins and eat my veggies, like a good Hulkamanic? -- 80’s reference if you didn’t get it) – which I found hilarious.
I apologize for this long and winding post. I bring all of this up, because I don’t know how to feel about God, let alone with Husband finding religion. I’ve been a Catholic, a Baptist, a Methodist…and non-denominational. I’ve seen tragedies in my life, I’ve seen miracles (with the birth of my daughter) and I’ve lived through hell to see another day. I’ve seen shit and have questioned God on why it happened (why did my cousins have to be molested? Why did Helen have to be murdered? Why did Michael die that day on that motorcycle?) WHY, God, why?
I have been saying to Husband for a very long time that we should go to church as a family, but I haven’t been saying it for myself, I say it because I think Daughter should have some sort of religious foundation. Even if she chooses not to continue with it when she’s an adult, and even if she ends up where I am, not even being a 100% believer – I still think having that foundation is important. Part of me thinks it’s nice that Husband has started to go to church more often, but part of me has to question his sincerity. I’m cynical that way. He seems earnest. He seems genuine. He says his reason for it is that he wants to be a “better person”. He even went so far as to buy a Blessed Mother statue for our yard. When I joked that we have truly arrived and finally told the neighborhood that We Are Italians! – he got a little offended. Geez, learn to take a joke. I didn’t say it to mock the Virgin Mary. I didn’t say it to mock religion, nor to mock him Finding His Religion. I said it just as a joke, because it’s a stereotype, and I love stereotypical humor. Get over yourself.
But I just wonder when I am going to find my religion, too. I don’t want it to come to me because of some tragedy, like my sister being murdered (although, I don’t have a sister, but you know what I mean). And I don’t want to find it because I’ve decided that passing the bar exam is a lost cause and my only way to pass it is to invoke the help of God Almighty. Or because I think I need to be a “better person”. I’d rather find it just because -- just because I have faith, and want to be filled with the love of God that so many people talk about. I only wonder if that day will every come – the day where I trust God enough not to question him anymore, and to believe that He knows best. I doubt I’ll stop questioning, though. But I’d at least like to Believe in the way so many people I know do. When will I find my religion? When, God, WHEN?
I wasn’t baptized as a baby, like most babies. No, I was baptized Catholic at the ripe old age of six. This came about in a very strange and unfortunate way. My mom had an older sister, Helen who had three daughters. I speak in the past tense, because Helen was murdered by her second husband in 1991 when she was 36. And I speak in the past tense about her three daughters, because when I was six, her youngest daughter, Theresa, died from pneumonia (she was three). Apparently, Theresa wasn’t baptized as a baby either, because when she died, my mother, grandmother and Aunt Helen must have collectively shit their pants in a panic that Theresa was going to purgatory or something because that’s when my two cousins and I were finally baptized. I always thought that Catholicism had all of these rules you had to follow regarding getting baptized and all of that – but I am thinking that there are no prerequisites regarding baptisms, because it just happened. My maternal grandmother belonged to a Catholic Church at the time (I don’t remember the name, but I do know the church is long gone, because I had to request my baptism records from the Archdiocese of Detroit when I was getting married). So, I was baptized Catholic along with my two cousins. I don’t really remember much from it other than the matching dresses we all wore (yes, clothes have always been important to me) and that I got some water sprinkled on my head. I also remember the church as big and old-looking – it was probably one of those really old, beautiful Catholic Churches they just don’t build anymore. *sigh*
My Catholic education ended that day at the baptism, because I never really ended up going to a Catholic church very often, and never attend catechism classes. I never had an official First Communion, Confirmation, or any of the other stuff you get to do as a Catholic Kid. For some reason, even today, I feel cheated. But, that doesn’t mean, my religious education ended…oh, no.
When I was 8, living with my parents, they rented a house across a major freeway from a Baptist Church. Somehow they found out that the this church had a bus that picked the kids up for Sunday School and delivered them to church the hour prior to the lecture (or whatever you call it in the Baptist religion. I want to call it “Mass” but I know that’s Catholic). Every Sunday, the church bus would pick me up and take me to Sunday School. This is primarily where I learned about religion. I remember making little craft-type things in Sunday School, and singing “The B-I-B-L-E, that’s the book for me, I stand alone with the word of God…the B-I-B-L-E!” You get the picture. I liked Sunday School, but hated the lecture part of it. And the bus driver obviously was part of the congregation, so it’s not like he was going to drop the kids off until mass was over. And my parents weren’t going to church (funny how I had to go, but they stayed home, isn’t it?), so I had to sit through the lecture for an hour. Some days were kind of exciting, like when someone was getting baptized…because these people took a swim in a massive dunk tank. No sprinkle of water in this church. No, Baptists go all out and wash away your sins with a full-body bath.
Once in a while I got into trouble with the activities I did to pass the time during the lecture. Like the time I brought my cousin, Michael with me. Michael and I – he was about 6 months younger than me – we somehow got on the subject of trying to think up as many swear words as we could. We started writing them down in the little notebook I kept in my purse. (I’m sure you see where this story is going). Well, here’s a couple of 8-year-olds writing down swear words like “Motherfucker” and “Shit” in a notepad IN CHURCH. A while later my parents went through my purse and found my list of swear words, and my dad beat the living shit out of me with a ping-pong paddle. It was one of the major spankings of my life. My mom and I joked about it a few weeks ago, actually, and I told her about how I was with Michael (he’s also passed away now…he died when he was 20 in a motorcycle accident) and how we were just trying to pass the time since the lecture was boring to us. We both kinda laughed about it – especially considering the inappropriateness of it, you know -- being in church. But geez. Kids do dumb shit and really don’t think about how appropriate it is, now do they?
Sometime in the next year or so, my parents found religion too, and became “Born Again”. Whatever that means. We had moved out of the house across the freeway from the Baptist Church, but we never attended church as a family. My parents just ended up watching televangelists and thought that was good enough, I guess. I remember watching the shows with Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, Kenneth Copeland, and even the PTL with Pat Robertson. I guess TV church is better than no church.
That phase only lasted a little while. In the meantime, my religious education practically stopped. I did go to church services here and there at Easter and Christmas – I’ve been to non-denominational churches, Methodist, Presbyterian…you name it. I’ve probably attended a service there once in my life.
Fast forward now, to 1991, when my Aunt Helen was murdered (and you thought I only told that story to get your attention and not because it was important to the story, didn’t you?) Helen and my mom were only one year apart in age. They were relatively close, and when she was murdered, my mom flipped out a little. I think some of it was due to the fact that she was only a year younger, and the emotional part of realizing your own mortality is kind of scary, and I think some of it was there are probably some things in my mom’s life that she’s done that she’s not proud of – and I’m sure there was also a little part of it that had to do with my dad.
I don’t really talk much about the scary times with my dad, because I choose to keep those memories under wraps. But besides the fact that he’s an alcoholic, he’s also a Vietnam Veteran, and goes to therapy frequently. I know he had a really shitty childhood (his dad used to beat the shit out of him on a regular basis) and I know he’s got his own demons he tries to kill with alcohol (my non-professional opinion). Well, when I was a kid, he was not attending therapy, and the alcoholism was not something that my mom really realized – probably because she was young and didn’t know better. Anyway, I can remember them having horrible arguments throughout my formative years (I’d say maybe from 12-17) when he would stop going to therapy, probably go off his meds, and go out drinking. He’d come home blinding drunk, start some shit with my mom, and then they’d have crazy arguments, with my mom throwing shit around and destroying things (during one argument, my mom cut my dad’s head out of a family portrait and once threw a coffee mug through one of their living room windows). I usually tried to shut these things out, but I remember one particular argument when my maternal grandpa was visiting from Florida (and whom I worshipped and loved to death) – I was about 18. My dad owned a gun and during the argument, he pulled the gun out, and threatened to kill my grandpa along with my mom. I overheard all of this from upstairs, got so scared, that I grabbed my little brother (who was about 8 years old at the time) grabbed the telephone, and went outside to my car. It was like midnight. I called the only person at the time that I could count on – Husband. Husband and I had only been dating about a year, but he rushed over because he was going to protect me. Once he showed up, the situation had already been diffused, but everyone now knew that Husband Knew. Husband Knew How Fucked Up Everything Was. (Now you understand one of the reasons why I love him and need him in my life. He has always protected me, and came like a knight in shining armor to my rescue when I was scared shitless and hysterical. And despite coming from such dysfunction, he married me anyway. He must really love me, huh?)
After the incident mentioned above, my dad went back to therapy and the gun got sold. To this day, there are no weapons in my parents house, and my dad still goes to therapy. I don’t understand why my parents are still together, because frankly, if the man I was married to pulled out a gun and waved it in my face with my kids in the house, I probably would have called the cops, pressed charges, and then divorced him. That shit is called aggravated assault with a deadly weapon! I also don’t know why I didn’t call the police, and the only person I called was Husband. Maybe I was embarrassed, maybe I knew everything would be OK (although, let me tell you, I sure didn’t feel that way at the time), or maybe because this was during a time where people just didn’t do shit like this (like you never heard of someone killing their wives or family or whatever. Times are different now, and this was a couple of years before Helen’s murder). You’re going to laugh, but I think at heart, my dad is a decent person. I just think he has a lot of problems (understatement) and is probably a horribly tortured soul. I don’t think he would have killed anyone that night, because it’s been 20 years since that incident and there’s never been another similar altercation. And while he and my mom still have arguments, I don’t think they’re life threatening. For all the shit she tells me, I know she’d tell me if something like this happened again.
Anyway, you see, this story is important to why I think my mom flipped a little when Helen was killed. She may have seen herself in that coffin. Who knows. My dad wasn’t physically abusive – it was more mental. Helen was stabbed to death, which to me means that her husband must have really been in a rage. She was stabbed all over her body and was left to die on her kitchen floor. He really did a piss-poor job of trying to cover anything up – he was the first and only suspect. He’s currently in prison, in case you were wondering. He was convicted of second-degree murder, and I think got a 20-year sentence (I always thought it should have been first degree murder, but he must have had one helluva lawyer who argued it was heat of passion or something). I imagine he’ll be up for parole soon, if he hasn’t already. I do know he’s still in prison and I really hope he never gets out. Besides being a murderer, he also molested my two cousins for YEARS (the ones who got baptized with me – his stepdaughters – which pretty much fucked them up for life), which was the whole reason for his and Helen’s argument that night. One of my cousins had finally told her, and she confronted him and told him she was divorcing him.
So when Helen died, it was 1991. I was 20. My mom found Jesus, and we started attending an Orthodox church. Which I came to realize pretty soon, was a version of Catholicism. Only the priests are allowed to marry and mass is like an hour and a half, instead of an hour. Really, those are the only really big differences, far as I could tell. By this time, Husband and I had gotten pretty serious about each other, and he mentioned to me that instead of going to the Orthodox Church, I should start going to Catholic Mass with him. Which is what I started doing. We went to mass together for a few years, in the same church we ended up getting married in. I have to say, I liked going to church with him. The church had a band with an electric guitar, and they rocked the house during all of the songs (Imagine the “Hallelujah” or “Hosanna in the Highest” sent to electric guitar with drums). It was, dare I say it – fun. Husband knew my Catholic education was dismal, and that I had never had communion. I remember the very first time I took communion – it was with him, and at his encouragement. He told me that I should do it, and the fact that I hadn’t had a “First Communion” didn’t matter. But I thought there were rules? Just go! And in that church, in that pew, he showed me what to do when I went up there (“and don’t forget to say “Amen” when he says “Body of Christ”!). Like I said, I’ll never forget it. Like many of my firsts in life, he was there to see it.
After we got married, our church attendance waned, and I can’t say we’re regular church-goers. We’re bad Catholics. I mean, we don’t even make it for Easter or Christmas. Bad, bad Catholics. I did manage to get Daughter baptized – and I need to get my shit together, because she’s going to have to start going to catechism because her First Communion will be next year.
But I must admit, I’m not very religious. I sometimes even wonder if there is a God. I like to think that there is – but to be truthful, I really wonder. I think I am more of a believer, than a non-believer, like maybe 75% of me believes, but then there’s 25% of me that wonders. I still pray occasionally, and I really believe that there’s SOMETHING (maybe God) out there helping us with our journey in life. And I just don’t believe as a just-in-case…you know, just in case there IS a God. I truly believe just because I do. I can’t imagine that life is a random miracle. Although I do believe in evolution, and think most of the stories in the bible are akin to allegories…meant more to teach lessons, and less as Actual Stories of Real Events.
The whole point of this post, is that lately – and by lately, I mean in the last couple of months – Husband has seemed to find his religion. Raised in an Italian-Catholic family, Husband had the typical Catholic upbringing. He had a First Communion and a Confirmation, and knows all of the pomp and circumstance that goes along with being Catholic. Which, at times, I am jealous of – because I wish I knew about all of the saints, and understood what transubstantiation meant (actually, I do know what it means, because I looked it up). But you get the idea. I even bought a book a few years back – “The Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Catholicism” because I wanted to know what everything meant.
Husband has started going to Mass (mind you, he goes during the week and doesn’t invite me), regularly, and we also have shrine-like candles lit that burn all day in our bedroom. There’s two of them – one is for me, in the hopes that burning this candle will somehow help me pass the Bar exam – and the other is for his cousin, Anna, who has now undergone her second liver transplant in the past month (her body started rejecting the first liver she received).
Husband has even found a website for St. Anthony, who among other things, is the patron saints of “lost causes”. He put a prayer for me on this website. Nevermind that I find it both offensive and funny that Husband considers me passing the bar exam a “lost cause” and when I mentioned that to him, he basically brushed off the literal meaning and said “It can’t hurt”. But the St. Anthony website also had a novena that you are to recite everyday for nine days – and Husband has printed it for me. I did say the novena this morning before our shrine of candles (and before I blew them out). But I got a text this morning asking me if I remember to say my prayers from Husband (along with a second, rapid-fire text, that also asked me if I remembered to take my vitamins and eat my veggies, like a good Hulkamanic? -- 80’s reference if you didn’t get it) – which I found hilarious.
I apologize for this long and winding post. I bring all of this up, because I don’t know how to feel about God, let alone with Husband finding religion. I’ve been a Catholic, a Baptist, a Methodist…and non-denominational. I’ve seen tragedies in my life, I’ve seen miracles (with the birth of my daughter) and I’ve lived through hell to see another day. I’ve seen shit and have questioned God on why it happened (why did my cousins have to be molested? Why did Helen have to be murdered? Why did Michael die that day on that motorcycle?) WHY, God, why?
I have been saying to Husband for a very long time that we should go to church as a family, but I haven’t been saying it for myself, I say it because I think Daughter should have some sort of religious foundation. Even if she chooses not to continue with it when she’s an adult, and even if she ends up where I am, not even being a 100% believer – I still think having that foundation is important. Part of me thinks it’s nice that Husband has started to go to church more often, but part of me has to question his sincerity. I’m cynical that way. He seems earnest. He seems genuine. He says his reason for it is that he wants to be a “better person”. He even went so far as to buy a Blessed Mother statue for our yard. When I joked that we have truly arrived and finally told the neighborhood that We Are Italians! – he got a little offended. Geez, learn to take a joke. I didn’t say it to mock the Virgin Mary. I didn’t say it to mock religion, nor to mock him Finding His Religion. I said it just as a joke, because it’s a stereotype, and I love stereotypical humor. Get over yourself.
But I just wonder when I am going to find my religion, too. I don’t want it to come to me because of some tragedy, like my sister being murdered (although, I don’t have a sister, but you know what I mean). And I don’t want to find it because I’ve decided that passing the bar exam is a lost cause and my only way to pass it is to invoke the help of God Almighty. Or because I think I need to be a “better person”. I’d rather find it just because -- just because I have faith, and want to be filled with the love of God that so many people talk about. I only wonder if that day will every come – the day where I trust God enough not to question him anymore, and to believe that He knows best. I doubt I’ll stop questioning, though. But I’d at least like to Believe in the way so many people I know do. When will I find my religion? When, God, WHEN?
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