Last edited Tue Mar 6, 2018, 02:34 AM - Edit history (1)
My cousin, the state cop, showed up and started filling my father with fear about going to hell. He had been at peace with having just a few hours, or days, until that asshole came by. After that, he spent part of one of his last hours sobbing like a terrified child. He looked at me with wild eyes, and asked me for forgiveness, and if I thought he was going to hell. I told him that there was no hell. He seemed shocked. Then he asked if I was an atheist. "Pretty close," I told my father. I said that something big would have to happen to convince me about religion.
He seemed sad then. He said he was sorry -- like my agnosticism was somehow another thing that was on him.
"What about heaven?" He asked. "Nope" I said.
There was a patch of awkward silence then. I thought about it and said "I do believe in the afterlife, though. For me, that's all the people still alive after me, and all the people who are going to live in the future."
"But, when you die, nothing?" He said.
"Everybody IS me, to one degree or another," I said, "Just not all in one package. Hell, you can find me in any trailer park in America -- 20% in this one, 60% in that one, but I'm there."
He liked that. He smiled.
About that time, his wife came in with some meds, giving me stern looks -- like it was time I got out. I said goodnight, and squeezed his hand. I went on home, planning to come back with some better answer the next afternoon.
He died at about 4:00 that morning. My stepmother said he seemed calm and peaceful, so I let myself think that what I indulged-in at the end was alright.
My level of agnosti-guilt about it is at about 2 (scale of 10). That's probably the best I could do, no matter what I'd done.
So... take from this what you will. [Shrug.]
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