Saturday, June 24, 2006

A letter to the Almighty.

Dear God,

I'm really furious.

I've been working on this acceptance business. Really, I have been. I have let go of needing to know why N. died even though she just turned forty. Of why C. has to raise two young daughters alone. I recognize that I cannot know how You are at work in this.

And I recognize that my trip to the emergency room -- asthma and a pulled pectoral muscle (i.e, chest pain and shortness of breath, a lot like cardiac symptoms) -- was a wake-up call that I need to be more careful about how I take care of my body. I can see a lesson here, and I am working at accepting that, too.

But the car? The three-year-old van going into complete and total transmission failure at midnight on I-5 in the Central Valley a hundred miles from nowhere, when we were so desperately rushing home so my husband could fly to be with his brother? What on Your green earth was that all about?

Does every step of this have to be a misery? Can't You cut me a little slack? I am working so hard.

My friend says that's not how You work. It's not? How do You work then? Are You some sort of detached God, who sits and grieves the human condition but does not one damn thing about it, for all Your vaunted omnipotence? Enquiring minds want to know here. Do You even exist? Is the sound of sheer silence You, or simply silence?

Forty. Dammit, God. She was forty.

Is it true then? Is life random and unfair? Is it pandemonium?

That smug young preacher at C.'s church last week in his sermon said that "blessed means happy-- not just happy but 'turbo-happy'." Oh, yeah? What does that make me? Or C.? Because I can assure You that we are not happy. He's grieving, and I'm mad. Because bad things have happened to us, is that evidence that You've turned your back on us? Screw that.

Your Son said "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted." I'm taking that for a promise; C. needs comforting. (I notice that nowhere in the Beatitudes does it say "blessed are the seriously pissed off.")

I'm still here. I'm still mad.

Pat.

1 comment:

  1. I read in a book once that we have to say Thank you for all things, even if it's through gritted teeth.

    I thought about that for a time, and realized that ultimately it's about accepting all things, no matter how confusing, frustrating and without reason, becaues somehow, someway it all has a purpose.

    but it's one thing for me to type this out, and another for you to be stuck, in the middle of nowhere, when your husband needs to be somewhere else...

    hang in there doesn't even begin to describe what I want to say. or does you are in my prayers. when you lose ones you love and they are young and full of so much life, it is really hard, difficult. leaves you gobsmacked.

    mostly, let yourself feel that anger. bottling things up against anyone, even God, is pointless. be mad, let it out, and then take a deep breath, and breathe out.

    and know there are people out here who are thinking of you, your family, N's family, and that tomorrow is another day...

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