Aging
I am an old woman now. Yes, people will still exclaim "oh you aren't Old!" even though I will be 61 in two months (why do people do that??) but I know that I am not only old I lately Feel and Look Old. I'm lucky, I've only felt this way for a couple of years. Definitely only started to Look old in my late fifties.
But it is here. I've receive one death sentence, a COPD diagnosis over a year ago. I'm pretty sure that whatever is going to kill me is already at work in me somewhere. I have trouble breathing sometimes and feel my heart doing things it shouldn't.
Am I afraid of death?
Somewhat. I feel farther from God than ever in my life. That's pretty scary and I am trying to fix it. I bought a Bible not long ago. Started watching biblical documentaries, history of all religions. Life after death stories. Preparing myself.
The terrifying part for me is those I will leave behind. It seems like I have too many people totally dependant on me. And I do.
That is what I have to fix before my time here is done.
This is my death project.
Where I stand now
I believe in God. Until recently, I was hesitant to say even that. I was shaken by science, new discoveries, conclusions, attitudes if some of the scientific community. Stephen Hawking died disclaiming God. Even before that I spent three years studying with Morman missionaries and during this time I studied all religions. I loved the idea of Mormonism, the family and community life of it, but I couldn't accept their views of and belief in Joseph Smith. I don't know how anyone with internet access could. When they said that God himself would tell me I did pray for that insight as they instructed. I prayed harder and longer than I have ever prayed for anything and then listened long and hard for the still, small voice to answer. Sweating and in tears I knelt there waiting, not eating, not drinking, just waiting for two days. Not only did God not tell me Joseph Smith was a prophet, I felt No Response at all. That nothingness was the beginning of my total break in faith.
When I was a young teenager I read "A Separate Peace". I love the book and lived the rest of my life by one of Phineas's law "pray every night just in case there's a God".
I prayed less and less and when I did it was without faith or hope, basically only by Phineas's law. Pretty much just, Thank you for this day and all of its blessings and keep my family safe. Amen. I still talked about God to the little ones. Answered their questions, explained the biblical history of the world in the same words I used teaching my children but without the fervor, joy or love I used to express. I see this mostly in retrospect right now. At the time I was telling myself that I was making sure they had the information to make their own
decisions about faith as they grew up. I was always aware of the feeling that I in all my young fervor had somehow failed to pass on my love of God to my own children. Now I am failing another generation even worse spouting words with no Faith at all.
My own faith and belief began when I was about 8 years old. I remember playing alone in the back yard near a bed of marigolds when a deep, dark, feeling overpowered me. It passed quickly but I thought then, "That is what real death feels like". I would through my life learn to believe it was a feeling of premonition. I have no memory of what that particular premonition was about if anything, but for the rest of my life that exact feeling would precede many dark events of my life. From this I felt proof that there were unseen forces in the world which made believing in God logical and necessary to survive.
My mother was Buddhist and my father was a Seeker. He studied religions all through my childhood much like I later would. He chose the Catholic Church for us. He went through all of the ritual himself, even serving as a altar boy, and made all of us take catechism and eventually be baptism into the church.
But then once when I was riding in the car with my parents and they thought I was asleep I overheard part of a conversation between them. It was my mother asking "But how can we tell her about God?" and my father answered, "It will be OK. She understood about Santa Claus..." I drifted back off to sleep but waited for years for them to tell me that God was made-up too. They never got around to telling me what that was about. It was years later, and maybe totally unrelated to what I overheard in the car, when Daddy announced to all of us that there was No God. I was 10 years old and we had been attending the Catholic Church all those years still. Not long later Daddy had a heart attack on a business trip to Cape Cod for NASA. He survived it and made it home to Houston when he got out of the hospital. A very weak man was wheeled off the plane in a wheelchair at Hobby Airport. That night he called us all to his bedside, he was sweating and trembling and he said, "Remember this One Thing, THERE IS A GOD! " mom called an ambulance and he died a few hours later.
My father was a brilliant man, he got into the space race as an engineer with a sixth grade education. He was also a mentally ill, introverted, deviant man. I believe his last words saved him and maybe us. I know that I took his dying words very seriously. They were validation of my faith and the springboard to the religious life I would live.
But it is here. I've receive one death sentence, a COPD diagnosis over a year ago. I'm pretty sure that whatever is going to kill me is already at work in me somewhere. I have trouble breathing sometimes and feel my heart doing things it shouldn't.
Am I afraid of death?
Somewhat. I feel farther from God than ever in my life. That's pretty scary and I am trying to fix it. I bought a Bible not long ago. Started watching biblical documentaries, history of all religions. Life after death stories. Preparing myself.
The terrifying part for me is those I will leave behind. It seems like I have too many people totally dependant on me. And I do.
That is what I have to fix before my time here is done.
This is my death project.
Where I stand now
I believe in God. Until recently, I was hesitant to say even that. I was shaken by science, new discoveries, conclusions, attitudes if some of the scientific community. Stephen Hawking died disclaiming God. Even before that I spent three years studying with Morman missionaries and during this time I studied all religions. I loved the idea of Mormonism, the family and community life of it, but I couldn't accept their views of and belief in Joseph Smith. I don't know how anyone with internet access could. When they said that God himself would tell me I did pray for that insight as they instructed. I prayed harder and longer than I have ever prayed for anything and then listened long and hard for the still, small voice to answer. Sweating and in tears I knelt there waiting, not eating, not drinking, just waiting for two days. Not only did God not tell me Joseph Smith was a prophet, I felt No Response at all. That nothingness was the beginning of my total break in faith.
When I was a young teenager I read "A Separate Peace". I love the book and lived the rest of my life by one of Phineas's law "pray every night just in case there's a God".
I prayed less and less and when I did it was without faith or hope, basically only by Phineas's law. Pretty much just, Thank you for this day and all of its blessings and keep my family safe. Amen. I still talked about God to the little ones. Answered their questions, explained the biblical history of the world in the same words I used teaching my children but without the fervor, joy or love I used to express. I see this mostly in retrospect right now. At the time I was telling myself that I was making sure they had the information to make their own
decisions about faith as they grew up. I was always aware of the feeling that I in all my young fervor had somehow failed to pass on my love of God to my own children. Now I am failing another generation even worse spouting words with no Faith at all.
My own faith and belief began when I was about 8 years old. I remember playing alone in the back yard near a bed of marigolds when a deep, dark, feeling overpowered me. It passed quickly but I thought then, "That is what real death feels like". I would through my life learn to believe it was a feeling of premonition. I have no memory of what that particular premonition was about if anything, but for the rest of my life that exact feeling would precede many dark events of my life. From this I felt proof that there were unseen forces in the world which made believing in God logical and necessary to survive.
My mother was Buddhist and my father was a Seeker. He studied religions all through my childhood much like I later would. He chose the Catholic Church for us. He went through all of the ritual himself, even serving as a altar boy, and made all of us take catechism and eventually be baptism into the church.
But then once when I was riding in the car with my parents and they thought I was asleep I overheard part of a conversation between them. It was my mother asking "But how can we tell her about God?" and my father answered, "It will be OK. She understood about Santa Claus..." I drifted back off to sleep but waited for years for them to tell me that God was made-up too. They never got around to telling me what that was about. It was years later, and maybe totally unrelated to what I overheard in the car, when Daddy announced to all of us that there was No God. I was 10 years old and we had been attending the Catholic Church all those years still. Not long later Daddy had a heart attack on a business trip to Cape Cod for NASA. He survived it and made it home to Houston when he got out of the hospital. A very weak man was wheeled off the plane in a wheelchair at Hobby Airport. That night he called us all to his bedside, he was sweating and trembling and he said, "Remember this One Thing, THERE IS A GOD! " mom called an ambulance and he died a few hours later.
My father was a brilliant man, he got into the space race as an engineer with a sixth grade education. He was also a mentally ill, introverted, deviant man. I believe his last words saved him and maybe us. I know that I took his dying words very seriously. They were validation of my faith and the springboard to the religious life I would live.
The life that would live to see the death of my own Faith.
Will mine only revive on my deathbed?
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