Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Scattering of Dad's ashes

Like I mention before, my father died over 2 years ago after a short battle with lung cancer. My mother and father had a pretty typical relationship for people in their late 60's. They met and married in their early 20's, had 3 children, raised them the best they could with the limited knowledge that they had, then wished us well as we graduated from HS. As far as they were concerned that was the end of their responsibility to us. One thing that I remember about my mother was how insanely jealous she was of my father. Many nights I laid awake in bed as I heard her grilling my father about any women he came into contact with that day. It terrified me and I swore never to treat my future spouse that way.

With that in mind one can imagine my surprise when my mother announced last October that she was to get married. Mom seemed so devoted to Dad and to his memory. Although she had hinted she was having a relationship with a man via phone and Internet, she didn't let on that it was serious. So she gets married in December and they stay in Texas for another month as she packs and takes care of business. As you can tell, I wasn't privy to the details of the wedding, nor did I care. I had finally gotten to that point since she never seemed to be that concerned about me.

Three weeks after the wedding she calls my siblings and me to let us know she wants to scatter Dad's ashes. "It's time," she explains. The location is 4 hours from her apartment in SE Texas and my thoughts are about how I dread being trapped in a car with her and my sister. The bright spot is I'll also be trapped in the same car with my brother, who shares in my disbelief.

The trip to South Texas wasn't bad. Before going Brother and I decide not to be confrontational. It would serve no purpose. There were a couple of tense moments though. During the scattering of ashes Mom asks if we would like to say anything. Due to the fact that I had already had a conversation with her that Dad was not in heaven, I decide to say a few things. I mentioned that I still have vivid dreams about Dad and I wake up sobbing and missing him very much and that Dad continues to live in my memories of him. Then something very uncomfortable happens; the group hug. Arrgghh! I've never enjoyed getting physical with anyone other than a sexual partner, I don't know why, but hugs with anyone else is just gross for me. Mom wants to say the Lord's Prayer so she and Sister recite it for reasons I'm still not sure about. I guess for comfort, but the Lord's Prayer was something we never said as a family so the meaning of it was lost on me.

The next uncomfortable moment was when Brother talked about having little time to finish a I book I gave him for Christmas. Mom wants to know the name of the book and Brother froze. It was a little funny as it showed how much he cared not to rock the boat, so I decided to rescue him, sort of. I piped up that it was a religious book, and then there was silence for several minutes as someone else had to figure out what to talk about next. The book in question? "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.

Now for my short rant. I thought Brother and I handled that quite well, thank you very much, but why do Christians get a pass and atheists don't? I was pissed that we had to handle those poor Christians with kid gloves and not talk out in the open about our beliefs and our feelings. It's not that I want to convert or argue with them; I feel a deep need to explain why the journey was important to me. I also know that they are not interested and feel it would be a waste of their time to talk to me about it. That's what frustrates me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry to hear that you're hurting. :( Losing loved ones is hard.
I feel a deep need to explain why the journey was important to me.
I can relate to this.
I won't offer you a hug. ;) But, I will *Furiously NOD*.

tina FCD said...

I am an atheist also and my family doesn't know. It's just never came up. I'm talking about siblings and my mom. Three of my children know and the other one doesn't know.He's been away.I hate walking on egg shells around religious people. Your blog was insightful and it lets me know that I'm not alone about atheism.