Dorienne's Log

I didn’t make it to church today.

This time last year, such a statement would have initiated a barrage of texts, e-mails and phone calls regarding my whereabouts that I would have felt it necessary to release a public statement to let my family know that I was okay. Nowadays, however, things are different. No one calls because it’s not such a rare occurrence any longer.

I’ve been telling myself for months, “I’m not losing my faith. I’m just going through some things right now.” What these “things” are, I don’t know and, as much as I pray about it, these “things” aren’t revealing themselves to me. All I do know is that has been getting easier and easier to skip that which held such an importance to me less than eight months ago and, when I woke up this morning, I had wondered if it was even “necessary” to go to church again. We’ve had another death in our family and, today especially, I just didn’t see the point in going to church.

Some time in 2008, I’d made a “deal” of sorts with God after losing Edrith and also MawMaw in such quick succession; I just didn’t want to go to anymore funerals until I turned 25. This entire time, I’ve known that I can’t actually deal with God, since I’ve got nothing of any real value to offer except my submission, which I should be giving anyway, but I’d made my deal last year, praying that I could just live life for two years without going to yet another funeral; saying goodbye to yet another person. I’ve experienced loss in the past two years, but I hadn’t needed to attend any homegoings. My birthday is not until the end of September and yet, here I am.

When I’d heard what had happened, I immediately thought of my deal and prayed for a very long time about what I’d done so wrong that I couldn’t have until at least my 25th birthday without having to deal with another loss. It wasn’t until this morning, however, that it occurred to me (really occurred to me) that there never was any “deal.” People come and people go as He sees fit and He had seen to it that I had the time I needed to grow up a little more before having to deal with it once again. But, what truly got to me this morning was the growing depression and thoughts that “none of this mattered,” that eventually I’d lose everyone I loved and no amount of church was going to change the inevitable. And, that’s when I started to cry.

I’ve always classified tears into three categories: “small tears” that occur when I shed a few over the birth of a child or when friends marry, “pain tears” that occur when I’m in such physical pain that there doesn’t seem to be anything else I can do, and then there are “real tears” that follow overwhelming depression and sadness. My tears this morning fell into that latter group and it angered me because I hate when I cry “real tears.” Joy or pain can be expressed, but mourning depression is something that I try to hold in as much as possible out of sheer frustration that I can be reduced to tears over something that simply encompasses my own thoughts bouncing against one another until I hit a low and I cannot pull myself out of it.

So, this morning, I lay in my bed, crying these real tears and thinking aloud that there really wasn’t a point to any of “it” anymore and I had no reason to even give “it” anymore thought because God hadn’t cared about my deal and He wasn’t answering me in the time that I wanted Him to answer and, even if He did speak to me, I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer. I must say, looking back hours later, it was very dark moment for me; one I used to experience all the time before I had first come to the church and had hoped I would never see again.

As complete frustration over these nonsensical real tears willed me to stop crying altogether, I lay there half-listening to a CD I’d made a couple weeks ago and wondered if I’d ever feel like myself ever again after recognizing that God doesn’t make “deals” with people. And, that was when the sappiest of songs started to echo through my boombox…

Now, I’ve been listening to Michael Jackson songs non-stop for the past three weeks and I know that’s a subject worth prayer in itself, but for this song to come on when it did… I felt a smile pull at my lips and I had to shake my head at the simultaneous “on-timeness” of God and simple coincidence. MJ’s “Keep the Faith” had come up on the CD.

Again, I’d been listening to MJ songs for close to a month straight and I’d probably played that song twenty times since I’d dug out my Dangerous album, but…when I lay wondering what the point of all of “it” was, when I lay thinking that no path I could take was ever going to bring me fully into Christ’s light, when I lay crying about God not answering my questions, the title of the song spoke to me: Keep the Faith. It sounds almost laughable when I write it because it’s not even a Christian song, but simply hearing the beginning of it and remembering the title right when I did felt like something only He could do for me in a moment so dire.

And so, in hearing this song that had both saccharine sappiness and inspiration weaved within it, I let out a laugh and rose from my bed thinking, “Well played, Old Man.”

I didn’t make it to church today, but I have this renewed vigor in my approach towards it, nevertheless. I began studying my Sunday School lesson for next week tonight, a feat I hadn’t accomplished since I started teaching again and, regardless of the fact that I know I’ve got greater and more painful losses coming my way in the upcoming years, I feel strong. The logical side of my mind is saying, “Dorienne, it was just a coincidence. The song comes on after ‘Give Into Me’ on your ‘MJ-Sleep’ CD. It’s just a coincidence.” but whenever I think of coincidences in relation to religious matters, I consider my favorite The X-Files quote coming from Mulder: “If coincidences are just coincidences, why do they feel so contrived?”

I was in a very, very low place this morning and God spoke to me in a manner, in a way that only He could and He told me, quite clearly, that even though the road ahead looks rough, I need to keep the faith. I can only chuckle to myself when I think about it. Well played, Old Man…

It is always so fascinating when you have a moment to reflect. Only in these moments do you realize just how much you take for granted. Or who for that matter. My great Aunt Phyllis passed away last Sunday and while I cannot forwardly remember her, I still prayed for my grandmother very, very hard. “They” say these things come in threes. With a lot of people the three started with Morgan Freeman, but with me it started with my great aunt.

I’d be lying if I said I watched every episode of The Bernie Mac Show and I’d also be lying if I said that he was one of my absolute favorites in comedy. But, I will say this: his was the funniest spot on The Original Kings of Comedy and you can always spot talent when you watch a comedian do stand-up. Even the few bits of The Bernie Mac Show I remember still stick with me and make me smile.

Bernie Mac was truly hilarious and, even though I only saw him in things here or there, I was still devastated when I read that he had passed. It seemed so simplistic and just far too soon, but I guess God knew it was his time just like with anyone else. What really interests me is the fact that he seemed more cherished to me than say Isaac Hayes. My heart goes out to the Hayes family, but with Bernie Mac, you know he is somewhere where there is no more pain and no more tragedy.

I watched The Original Kings of Comedy tonight because it was the only thing I had with him that didn’t require going all the way back downstairs and sifting through my DVDs, but I’m very glad I did. In the film, right before he goes on stage, he does the coolest thing; make a cross over himself and clearly say a short prayer before performing and his was just as funny as the first time I saw it. When he got into the part that turned out to be the plot of his show, I was crying with laughter for ten minutes straight.

While the bipolar in me wants to rush out and buy several seasons of The Bernie Mac Show and watch ten episodes of South Park straight, that “moment” passed without incident just by seeing Bernie Mac make that little cross before he performed. When I learned of Isaac Hayes passing, I prayed for him and his journey because it seems he went before the Creator a Scientologist instead of a Christian as he should have been, but with Bernie Mac, everything is all smiles. I know where he went and I can’t imagine how best to “pay my respects” to someone than to laugh with them on home.

Every once in a while, I find myself in an anxious stupor (if that’s even possible) as I feel time ticking away from me tick by tick by tick by tick…Whoops! There goes another second.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the odd one out in a room of millions. Like being the only girl in a room full of men. Like being the short person in a standing crowd. Like being the only black person in a classroom – Oh wait! I already face that every day!

But really, sometimes I wonder if anyone else in the world looks at the fact that every second that passes is a second closer to death. I think about it…often. Far too often. Sometimes, I think about it to the point that my breath catches and I run a dozen prayers through my mind to calm my spirit to the point that I can face the world again. And, there goes another ten minutes.

The entire idea of life bothers me. Twenty-three years have come and gone for me. One day I’ll wake up and I’ll be thirty or forty or sixty or ninety or I’ll just wake up to some searing pain in my chest as my body goes into cardiac arrest and I run a dozen prayers through my mind hoping that all “bad stuff” I’ve done or said or thought can be washed away in the .0310 seconds before I take my last breath.

The Christian in me does not fear death. I know – no, I really know – that I have accepted Christ in my heart and if I were to die at this very second…there’s a pretty good chance I would go to heaven. That part doesn’t bother me, in fact, it’s the only thing that comforts me. But then come the “what-ifs.”

The what-ifs drive doldrums into depressions, they drive eccentricities into insanities, they…I don’t know if I can sit here and list all the ways the what-ifs make the world a miserable place, but every time I think about another second passing…the what-ifs plague me.

What if this is all there is? What if there is no after-life waiting me? What if when we’re gone, we’re gone? What if I’ll never see Edrith or MawMaw again? What if my own mother dies and that’s it. No more hugs or lengthy birth stories every 26th of September; no more nothing. What if I never get married and have children? What if I end up old and alone? What if death is painful? What if it starts happening to me and I’m conscious of every part of it? What if I’m in such a panic when it starts to happen, I don’t even think of prayer and my last thoughts are “Oh shit!” instead of “Oh Christ!”? What if I think back to writing this post in my last moments and think, “What an utter waste of time!”? What if…indeed.

All the what-ifs notwithstanding, time keeps on marching. Already twenty minutes have passed since the moment I wrote “Time” as the title of this. Twenty minutes gone in a life that has to end at some point. Twenty fewer minutes to wonder, to love, to think, to grow, to create, to cry, to smile, yearn, eat, sleep, breath. And, there goes another twenty.

I think this is just a reflection on procrastination. I haven’t had time all week to even practice the lesson to be able to teach the adult class on Sunday, but what has me on edge is the fact that there hasn’t even been time to procrastinate. It’s already April and the book’s not done. It’s already April and the weight isn’t down a bit. It’s already April and I still don’t feel like I’m a greater, stronger, better Christian. And, another ten minutes into April gone.

Time…keeps moving on. Heh.

Time keeps movin’ on,
Friends they turn away.
I keep movin’ on
But I never found out why
I keep pushing so hard the dream,
I keep tryin’ to make it right
Through another lonely day, whoaa.

…maybe that should be my new song for the blog. Hmm…

I was enjoying my Saturday morning; simply lying there as the sun streamed in through my window, completely comfortable. Warm and cool at the same time and lying against my soft pillows on a bed with more feather bed and egg crate mattresses than anyone could ever need. I hadn’t slept-in on any given day in weeks and yesterday, upon hearing that my choir practice had been moved to later in the day, I rejoiced at knowing that, for once, I would get to enjoy my Saturday morning.

As I lied in the bed, I considered all the things that I could get done today: write a little, check website stats, see if anyone’s left any book comments, go to the church business meeting, go to work, Gallery Hop tonight as the finale of my birthday celebrations…Today was going to be a good day.

The call between my mother and I:

(My cell rings to the tune of Law and Order)
Me: Yes?
Mother: Hi…did I wake you?
Me: Kind of.
Mother: Oh…I guess you haven’t heard yet.
Me: Heard what?
Mother: Well…Sister Edrith passed away last night.
Me: What?
(It takes me a moment to bring her face to the name and then I’m confused. She just turned 36 a couple weeks ago. Only old people pass away. What the hell does she mean “pass away?”)
Me: What? What d’you mean pass away?
Mother: She passed away. She was in a car accident last night and she was killed.

Something else was said by my mother, but I’m not sure what. All I can really remember these hours later is the feel of immense pressure bearing down on my chest. That’s what it feels like. Grief.

It didn’t make sense. That’s what I kept telling myself. It just didn’t make any sense. Edrith is a good person and she’s got a lot to do. She’s the Sunday School teacher for our adult class, she’s a lead soprano in our “young adult” choir, she wants to still get married and have children, she wants to begin a wedding planning business; she’s got a lot to do.

My mother kept talking as the initial tears began to spring from my eyes. “When we’ve done what we’re supposed to do, God takes us. You know, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” I heard the words, but my body shook as it still shakes now, making it very difficult for me to type. How could she be dead? I just saw her on Tuesday. I shared my Matthew Henry commentary with her during Teacher’s Meeting because she hadn’t brought hers. I had meant to ask her if she had just come from work that night and if that was why she hadn’t brought her things with her. What am I supposed to do now? My mother kept saying “I know. I just had my own…”

Then, I started to cry out loud. I’d never heard my own cry of grief and now that I reflect back on it, I suppose it sounds as it should. A long wail followed by gasps and gasps of screaming and gurgling in the back of my throat as my mind could no longer prepare words to describe what my heart was feeling. I just set down the phone and started to cry and scream. I couldn’t see anything and my thoughts were simply “How could this have happened?” “What do you mean pass away?” “She couldn’t be dead. I just saw her?” “This doesn’t make any sense.”

I couldn’t collect myself. Me, Dorienne, I couldn’t collect myself. I can pull it together in any situation, I am the strong one, I am the leader, and yet I couldn’t collect myself. I told my mother, who could be heard sniffing softly through the phone was talking, but I couldn’t hear her. I told her I would call her back. I needed to collect myself.

I went to the bathroom, but I had a temper tantrum and slapped and kicked anything close to me. I banged against the shower door and kicked at the walls and stomped my feet and cried and cried and cried. It just wasn’t fair.

As I’m writing now, a friend of mine is IMing me. She wants to know when we’re going to Gallery Hop tonight. What can I tell her when I am only now able to form coherent thoughts?

…”oh, i’m sorry” is her response and then she asks who was it. It’s someone you’ll never meet because you’ve always been too high and mighty to humble yourself and come to church with me. That’s who it is.

I keep remembering my own thoughts that flew to mind as I cried. At one point I remember thinking “Jesus…I hate you.” That’s right. I thought that and it was almost as good as saying it. How could this have happened. How could He take my friend away from me? She had so much more to do. My mother had been saying to me God only takes when we’ve finished what we’re supposed to do, but I still say it’s crap. How could He have done this? It’s not fair. I’m not prepared.

We have a lot of sick and elderly in our church, and for them I was prepared. Someone had a seizure not two seats next to me in the choir stands last Sunday. For her, I was prepared. Our “mother” had a stroke a few weeks ago and is recovering. For her, I was prepared. So many of my “family” are over seventy and have been sick previously. For all of them, I was prepared. Not for Edrith. She’s my friend. I just saw her on Tuesday. I was going to see her today at our church business meeting. I was going to see tomorrow when we all consecrated for Sunday School and I was going to see her next Tuesday at Teacher’s Meeting. And now…

I don’t like not being prepared. I don’t like not having control. I kicked at the walls and pulled at my hair because I didn’t know what else to do. I’m so unprepared. It’s like I have no control over anything. I don’t like this. I need to be prepared. I need to be in control. I need to be prepared.

I remember thinking “Why do you do this to me Jesus? Why do you have us live only so that we die? Is this what my own life’s going to be like too? At the end, only a series of phone calls and gallons of tears shed? Why do you do this? It’s so unfair.”

What am I supposed to do? The one place I think I should go, church, is the one place I can’t. I associate her with church. I’ve been at that church for eighteen months and when I think of everything, from the seats to the fellowship hall to the steps to the parking lot, I think of her. What am I supposed to do now?

Last year about this time, we lost another member of our congregation. I had only just gotten to know her at that time, but it still hurt. Is this what you’re going to do Jesus? Are you going to take someone from me every fall? It’s so unfair. There was so much more she was going to do.

One of our choir’s songs just popped to mind and I have to collect myself again.
The struggle is over for you.
The struggle is over for you.
You’ve been in this place long enough
And the mountainside has been rough.
The struggle is over for you.

Dear Jesus…what am I supposed to do? It’s just so unfair. I was just talking to her. I can’t even remember the last things I said to her on Tuesday because it was so meaningless. It didn’t matter. I was just going to see her again on Saturday at the business meeting, so there was no reason to bother remembering what I’d said to her. It just doesn’t make any sense.

At one point I told myself I needed to get dressed, so I did. Everything except my glasses. It was as if I kept my eyes in this blur of the unseen, then I could delay reality. To put on my glasses or put in my contacts meant I’d have to see the world clearly and face the fact that our family had suffered this tragedy and the longer I delayed, the longer I could go without seeing it.

I just don’t know what to do. I still don’t know what to do. My mother called me back after I hadn’t called her and I answered after the second call. I barely remember what we talked about. I don’t want to see anybody at all. If I go without seeing anybody, then this can just be something in my mind; something that didn’t happen. More real than a dream, but something imaginary nonetheless.

I write all the time and I live in my head. I imagine things and perceive feelings and events that never happened all the time, and yet I am completely caught off guard. I had recently written about grief. It’s stages and what it was like when someone looked upon another who was grieving.
Something I had written months earlier:

“He was always out,” a voice said from the dining room doorway. Mrs. Whickfield, having recovered from the initial shock of hearing of her son’s death, stood just behind where the detectives sat, looking extremely distressed. Her blonde hair with its slivers of silver was tousled and standing on end in places, and blue eyes appeared dull behind the torrent of red in what should have been the whites of her eyes.

I find it almost laughable now to read the words. Once I dressed and finally digressed to put on my glasses, I took a look at myself in the mirror. My black hair stands on end in places from having been pulled at in fits of frustration and my brown eyes are laced with these traces of red lines everywhere. Months earlier, I could imagine grief, but…

Last Saturday, just one week to the day, I sat next to her as we prepared for our Mass Choir rehearsal and revealed to her that I had written a book. Her response: “Oh you go, girl! You gotta make your dreams come true. Like me and my business. I’m really looking into it too. I’m just imagining where I’d set up shop…” There was so much more she was supposed to do. I don’t understand why He would take her now. My mother kept saying that she had done what God had wanted her to do and he took her home, but we are selfish and we want her here with us. Mother said “God called her home and if there was ever a person I knew who deserved to be with her father, it’d be Edrith.” I just remember when our Sunday School lessons had brought us into Revelation and how she described the home of our heavenly father and how grand it would be. She spoke with such elation. I know she sits with Jesus never worrying, never crying, never stressing again, but…I’m still here and the shaking has returned as have the tears. I’m not prepared for this, like I’m not prepared for my own eventual end. Why doesn’t the fact that I know she’s at peace stop the sudden outbursts of tears? It just keeps happening and I don’t know what to do.

It’s almost time to leave for our church business meeting and I don’t know what to do. If I leave now, I suppose I can drive at a normal rate, right? Instead of speeding for once. I keep thinking, “Is this my punishment Lord? Is this what I get for not studying your Word enough for my own class? Is this my lesson for speeding throughout the city every single day? Is this some message you’re boring into me because I won’t listen?” I don’t hate Jesus and I haven’t lost my faith, but I’m still so unnerved that he could leave me this unprepared. I just don’t know what to do…So, I do what I always do in times of strife. I write. I write to bring these thoughts out of my mind, if only for a little while. I used to write poetry, but my mind cannot form even the freest free-verse right now. I can barely type at all, but I just need to write. It’s the only thing I can do to make some sense of this. To give it some perspective.

Mother kept saying that this is not something we’re meant to understand, but I still say it’s crap. I should get an answer. I want one now. I don’t want to wait for it. I deserve an answer!

She’s the third person I’ve ever known to die, but they are becoming increasingly worse as I get older. God, she just put her birthday money in the jar with me barely two Sundays ago…I didn’t know either of my grandfathers and I’d never met my mother’s cousin. I had only met my step-father’s mother once or twice and while I knew Kim, I didn’t really know her all that well. I saw that she looked a little sick, but I had only learned that she was on dialysis that Monday before, and had I known how truly sick she was, I might have been more prepared when Pastor announced from the pulpit that Sunday “Sister Kim passed away last night.” causing me to think “Who? No, that must have been some other Kim. Some Kim I didn’t know.” This is so much worse. We laughed together, worshipped together, prayed together. Wasn’t she just teasing me last Sunday because I had made it to Sunday School on time for two weeks in a row. God, what am I supposed to do?

Four of my own surgeries and now two deaths associated with Grant Hospital. I’ll never be able to go there again. I just…I don’t know.

I called Mother and told her I won’t be going to the church business meeting. I have to go to work today and I haven’t the strength to do both. I’ll be in the same place with which I had come to associate Edrith and I’ll fall to pieces again.

The first hints of a smile are trying to form, though face lacks the capacity to do it currently. When I spoke to my mother, she said something to me that makes me feel like all is not lost; that Jesus still hears me and still loves me even through my anger, frustration and sadness. She said to me, without me even mentioning that I didn’t know what to do, “You know what to do in times like this. Pray. We all have to pray. It’ll get you through this.” I needed to hear the words because I’ve realized I just kept saying it. That I didn’t know what to do. So, that’s what I’ll, now that I’ve written. I’ll pray about it and surely cry about it some more, but I think…I hope I’ll be okay.

It’s interesting because Pastor has always said that we never know when we’ll next get a chance to be in the house of the Lord. A part of me feels like if I had only known what was happening, I could have prayed about it right then and there and saved her, but I didn’t know. I would’ve known earlier today, but as my eyes fluttered open, I realized that my cell had been on vibrate all night and I turned it on to see I had missed several calls. I saw that my mother had called, but she’s always calling, so I turned the volume to normal and lied back against my pillows just as happy as I could be.

So many times earlier, I have prayed with all my strength and the Lord had delivered. It’s why I’m back with the church now. I had left when I was eighteen, insisting that I believed in God, but that he was not ever-present in my life and I had no reason to go to church. It wasn’t until I needed something, really, really needed something and literally fell on my knees praying for something specific, that I realized that God still listens to me. I asked for something specific; very specific and God delivered precisely what I needed. I would call it a miracle, but even now that seems far-fetched. I had prayed fervently weeks earlier as our church received some other terrible news. I had prayed and just said, “Jesus, it’s me again. I only really, really call out to you like this when it is most dire. Forget all the other little crap I’ve been asking about. This is what I need.” and He delivered yet again. If only I had known. I feel that I had only been awakened some time in the night when it happened; if I had just known, I could have prayed heartily again and there would only be need for a post about how great God is as opposed to my sorrow-filled lament.

My mother had told me earlier today that she thought Edrith was gone before they had even taken her to the hospital. I am just so despondent. I went to the bathroom and the toilet seat is broken. Now, I know what to do, but I just…

I just find it fascinating that this is what grief is like. I can imagine and ponder and theorize about anything this universe, but it’s not the same as actually experiencing it. I’m just…

I suppose I’m in awe.

Peter Boyle died yesterday and, like all deaths, it got me thinking. I did some pondering here: http://www.tv.com/users/kaitco/profile.php, but I feel more is needed.

When Jerry Orbach died, I had a constant stream of e-mails and instant messages from all the people who knew just how much I cherished Law & Order. What was so strange for me, was that for several days after hearing the news, I felt sort of…empty, like something wasn’t right in my world. I wanted to openly mourn him, but I felt I couldn’t or shouldn’t because I didn’t actually know him. I just saw him on television and thought he was great at his job. Eventually, while driving to work one day, everything just spilled over and I started sobbing in my car. Can you imagine it? Sobbing over someone I’d never met. I cried for him and for his family, but mostly, as I believe with hindsight, I cried for myself. With every death I see around me, I feel it coming ever closer. While I am a Christian and have the profound belief that death is, indeed, only the beginning, I cannot help fathom the sorrow and desperation surround death. Surrounding the unknown.

But more on what got me thinking today, was the death of a beloved celebrity. Everyone, everyone has a date with destiny, even those who have entertained us for years. I think of the stars who have entertained, mesmerized and shaped me, through their performances, into the person I am today, and I am filled with wonder. What will I do, how will I feel when Reginald Veljohnson or Kellie Shangyne Williams pass on into another life? My childhood was spent watching them and I feel that they are such a part of me…I don’t know it just doesn’t seem like I could imagine reading a BBC news post about their deaths. Even worse, Gillian Anderson. Good God! Her character, literally, is one of the reasons I am the way I am today. Hearing of her death….I would most likely need to take time for myself; time to truly mourn, like I’d lost a member of my own family. (and now all this has got me thinking about my beloved grandmother and how my own time is coming too…sigh)

It’s so weird, to know that I’ll miss someone I will never meet. I will never meet Peter Boyle, but I loved everything he did. I watch Everybody Loves Raymond nearly every night; it’s on for an hour in my town. I watched Taxi Driver not too long ago. I just don’t know. I guess…just my thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. Cancer. At 71. Doesn’t seem right; now that I think of it, neither does death.

We, my generation, we are Generation Y. Rather than a voiceless, aimless group, we ask the questions and demand answers. We are the first generation to grow up with computers, and one day the history books will reflect how this electronic intrusion has manipulated all of human thought. I find it ironic that I say this as I write in an online blog, but today all I ask is Why.

Why do people pass away? I know the chemical and physiological and evolutionary explanations, but these just tell me how; they never answer why. Why is that I can see one person on a Sunday afternoon, say hello to them, give them a hug, talk to them and wish them a happy, blessed week, and then seven days later learn that I will never speak to them again? Yes, she looked slightly paler than usual and she did have a bit of a limp, but I knew she was sick and just assumed that this was a part of it. Never had I imagined that I would never talk to her, attend meetings with her or hold hands during altar call ever again. There’s a part of me that still struggles to understand it. It doesn’t quite make sense in the grand scheme of things. There are so many cruel, terrible people in this world that never deserved to make it to the ages that they have, but they keep on laughing and living and being their cruel selves. Why should this Christian just slip away before another Sunday’s service?

In my heart, my only comfort at that thought was that I know she was saved and now she is at peace, but in my mind I am still confused. Who’s name did the pastor just say? No, that couldn’t possibly be her. It must have been another Kimm; someone I don’t know. Then, the realization hits and further questions are asked. Anger and wonder endures. Is this what will happen to me when I pass from this world? A mention during the announcements? But, what was I expecting the pastor to do?

I haven’t cried yet, though I do feel like the tears are just underneath my thoughtful facade. The service is Friday; she passed on Sunday. I feel almost robbed; like someone should have told me that there was a chance. It just seemed like she was sick, not fighting for her life. It’s not fair that people should die.

As a Christian, I know she’s at peace, but as a human being, this is where I struggle. I’m still in a state of disbelief and I am worried about what’s about to come. Not just the service, but those in future. There are so many more souls in my life now, so many more people I have to love. All I have is the question, how many times will have to endure this over the years? I know there’s no way to discern an exact number, but I know for certain, it is far too many.

The latest Bartleby has died…God, I can’t stand it!

Anyways, the rents are in Italy and I just now remembered that I need to have my tags renewed, but now I have to go through this entire Power of Attorney thing to get them changed. It’s so ridiculous, I can’t stand it. And now my car needs a whole bunch of shit done for it. So, now I’ll have to pay for even more crap.

But, now I’ve created a The Simpsons playlist and I’d much rather be doing other things….

Stupid fish!

Some time last night my Beta fish I had had for almost two years, Bartleby, died. Apathy followed not because “it’s just a fish,” but mostly because I felt everyone in the world would think such. It wasn’t until earlier this morning that I realized how often I unconsciously looked over at his bowl and smiled by seeing him and a real sadness overtook me….

This morning, I had an appointment with this “therapy” thing OSU offers….complete waste of time. I went with the hopes of getting info on how to stop procrastinating and tips on making myself a better person. I could teach a class on what must be done to be a “perfect” student, accomplishing such is the real trick. I left the office angry at losing that time I will never get back again, and once I got home (and glanced once again at the fish I took for granted), tears fell. Not for a long time, just long enough for me to come to realization that I’m all alone in this world. Though not actually; there are friends and family and what not, but to know that there’s no one in the world I can talk to about what truly ails me is quite the tearful thought.

**sigh**

Tonight, I will give Bartleby the second (the first died tragically two months after I brought him home) a proper flushing and tomorrow I will attempt to find a Bartleby the third who resembles the second enough to make me forget that anything went wrong today….at least, that is the hope…

Bye Bye Bartleby Irving Trish Fish II (April 2004 – February 2006)

I managed to put up another post prior to the mandatory six month mark! Ha! I’ve done it….
Although I’ve nothing to report…that’s the trouble with blogs, I guess.
A woman I’ve felt was a type of surrogate grandmother for me is dying and will probably die within the next couple of days. It’s not fair; it makes me hate the world and everything in it. I’ve also just found out that one of my best friends has been lying straight to my face for months now. I know it doesn’t sound like a horrible thing, but….I just don’t like lying. I don’t do it, if I can help; I’ve got nothing to lie about! People also make me sick. What does it matter that I’ve watched Star Wars a whole slew of times? It’s not like I bring it up in everyday conversation. How could it possibly affect anyone else in the world; the fact that I like the third Star Wars movie? Ninety percent of that is solely Hayden Christensen. Yes, people definitely make me sick…