She Would Not Cry If She Understood

This is a page from a collection of over a hundred posts I recently came across beginning in Mid-2005 through part of college.  I thought I would start bringing some of these out to be seen.  I completely forgot about all of this.


Earlier today I was folding laundry when I stopped and thought awhile about a particular gray shirt. While nothing is necessarily special about the shirt, it holds a fond memory of my father. He was always good at trivia and used it to win free tickets through the local radio stations. When he was younger the city newspaper featured him for his ridiculous amount of winnings, calling him the Trivia Pig. In the summer of 2006 he won preview tickets to the new Mission Impossible movie and invited me along. While walking through the door they gave us gray shirts that said M:I:III 05:05:06.

Folding the shirt and adding it to the pile I thought awhile about that date. The summer of 2006 was quite awhile after I had left the house. At that time I didn't get to spend much time with my family and when I did it was almost always with my dad. I think my mom knew I didn't want to spend time with her. That is not to say that I didn't before this whole mess. Before, I would gladly spend time with her. We had a common interest in woodworking and design. Whenever the house was in need of repair or we were making additions I was recruited as a helping hand. Her voice still echoes in my thoughts, "You were the one I trusted when daddy had problems... you were the one I could talk to." In the year or so that we were allowed to talk this theme was brought up over and over again. That and the crying. It was for this reason that I avoided her afterwards. When she would cry so hard that she couldn't breath what was I to say. I couldn't help her because not even I understood.

I used to think that it was her motherly emotions she couldn't control. Perhaps this is still a reason, but I think now there is some larger matter involved. It is the very same reason that I no longer cry over lost faith. Suddenly realizing that your faith is nearly completely misguided has a huge impact on the emotions. Not only because God becomes something different, but also because your complete reality changes. I say suddenly because when something is life-changing, several months to a year is instant. Even months after leaving the faith I was hit with new understanding. Imagine thinking that you would live on earth for eternity, growing up with this idea, and then finally understanding that this would not happen. To understand heaven and hell; these things are destructive, they cannot be taken in one single pill. Our minds simply cannot handle it.

But the truth, though hard to swallow, is beautiful. I understand that now and do not cry over the bitter change. If my mother knew that she would react the same. I worry for her. Everything is not lost, but she doesn't know that. She doesn't know that her son isn't dead, that he is very much alive. Seventeen years of doctrine was difficult enough to change, her forty-five years may be unchangeable, but there is still hope. How do you convince someone like this that you don't worship the devil just because you're Catholic? But even if understanding is possible a yet great questions arises. Will I still love the people I once knew?

I recently read a book that says a boys first heartache always comes from his father. I suppose this may be true but the hardest heartache most certainly comes from a girl he falls in love with. My heart's first scar came from the very girl that showed me the way to Catholicism. After four years of knowing her and several years of dealing with the battles and heartbreak of losing my family, we no longer speak. I suppose we've gone without speaking before, but never this long and to this extent. I never thought it was possible to stop loving her or even to stop missing her, but I have forgotten these things. There isn't even a blank place in my heart for her like there once was. It is very strange to know that you cannot even be a friend of someone you once had such an attachment to. It is the very same with my mother and father and sister. My sister most of all. Her and I had such a closeness that our friends constantly mentioned it. Now, as before, it's only strangeness, a feeling that you can only talk to the memory of her but with a grim mask and speech.

As a Catholic, I should want them to join me in my faith, but I don't. I don't because I would feel lonelier with them than without. I don't want to realize that my sister is gone from my memory. I don't want to realize that I have missed out on so many lives. I don't want to remember my little cousin's name. This blank space keeps me with greater company.