June 30, 2010
from the comments
I lost my father when I was 20 and in some ways I’m not sure I ever experienced the mourning process in a way that would’ve been appropriately therapeutic. This is partly because, at least in my own cultural context (which was overwhelmingly evangelical with a small element of catholicism), everyone seemed to feel that they should be involved in my mourning process. This came in the form of dozens of religious self-help books and 5-step programs about how to mourn “properly” as well as the hundreds of incredibly cutting remarks about how my father was in a much better place than his family that was still living. (I even had one family member, in all seriousness, tell me that god told her that he had given my Dad a choice between being returned to life and his family or heaven, and he chose the latter, which was somehow the least selfish option).
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I should mention that this particular family member’s remarks were made when she failed, after 20 minutes of praying over my father’s dead body, to raise him from the dead.
Yeah…
I need to go back and add the fuck all y’all category.
and I guess the fail category.
Oh, I bet she would not have liked our behavior after my father-in-law’s body had been taken out of the house and off to the funeral home. There was a lot of whisky and John Lee Hooker on the box.
“Resurrection Fail.”
Yes, we can laugh about these things — because honestly, what else can we do?