Wow, Grandma

I'm presently living in small town, Illinois, where I mostly grew up living with Mom.  I decided, after coming back from Italy, to move to Chicago, but I can't afford to stay there until I get a job.  (Great time to be looking for a job, clearly.)  So in the meantime, I'm staying at Grandma's house with Mom, waitressing downtown, and job hunting.

More importantly.......

Grandma passed away last week, Wednesday January 21, which is five years and one day after her husband died.  Totally surreal experience here.  Her death is not sinking in at all for me, while I work to keep mom happy and help her and my aunt and uncle go through Grandma's stuff.

Lots of pros and cons in this new life of mine.  

Pros: got to hang out with family I don't see often at the memorial.  Spending lots of quality time with my aunt and uncle, as well as mom's new husband.  Bonding with them all, enjoying their company, etc.  Hearing lots of great stories from the good ole' days, finding tons of outstanding pictures, etc.   Being in town with other great relatives.

Cons: living with my mother (much easier than it used to be, though, and rent-free housing is damn good), not having a paycheck yet, trying to avoid politics, racism, and religion as conversational topics in a house full of religious, conservative republicans, living out of a suitcase, sharing one bathroom with four other people, etc.

I really like hanging out with Aunt Diane.  She has such a fantastic, laid-back, humorous, no-nonsense attitude.  One of the pictures I found tonight is of Mom, Dad, (they're long-divorced), Steve and Diane, Grandma and Grandpa, Grandma's parents, and S&D's twins, all sitting around the table for a meal.  Some of them are laughing, and Dad is looking at Diane to see if she's laughing.  I find myself doing that with her, too.  Don't we all have those people in our lives?  We WANT them to enjoy these moments or jokes as much as we do.  We root for it.

This morning my uncle asked me if I've accepted Jesus into my heart.  Oh boy.  He's such a good guy, and he worries about not being able to join his family in heaven.  He wants so badly for us all to live happily with the strong faith that he enjoys.  I think I handled it pretty well.  We went over some bible verses he wanted me to see, and we talked about their meanings.  I explained that I had become an adult in the church willingly in the 8th grade, which is sort of what he means.  (And by willingly, I mean my mother cried until I agreed to do it.)

The truth is, I'm an agnostic at best.  Those critical thinking skills that we human beings are so fond of make it pretty difficult for me to rationalize faith in god and the bible's teachings.  Sometimes it really does seem like there's some kind of being or force around us (little signs that seem too coincidental to actually be so).  However, I can't bring myself to accept the concepts of heaven and hell.  Or the immaculate conception.  Or the child of god rising from the dead.  Doesn't it sound like mythology?   I'm too pansy to say that there's no afterlife whatsoever, because I'm worried that the ghosts I see on the discovery channel will start messing with me to prove otherwise.  But I have no confidence in an afterlife.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  It brings people a lot of comfort, though, and I certainly don't have the heart to argue with any of them.  Plus, it's not something that I'm currently passionate about, so why upset everybody?

(Sidenote: I'm very uncomfortable, however, with the concept that kind, loving non-christians aren't deserving of the same heavenly afterlife as christians.  A buddhist?  A muslim who's never heard of Jesus?  The jews?  And what about the atheists who live their lives kindly, responsibly, lovingly, following the golden rule?  WTF?  Just because they haven't agreed to blindly follow the totally unproven beliefs of one seriously flawed group of people, they should be punished for all eternity?  And doesn't the bible in general seem like one big book of old fables intended to teach people the right thing to do, or at least scare them into it?  It seems like a lot of it might be historically accurate to an extent, but these were written by men, too.  Bias, anyone?) 

Moving on, I'm learning lots of cool stuff about my Grandma.  She was a first-rate broad, no doubt.  Even though I can't hang out with her anymore, I sure do appreciate how she got me here for the time being - to get to know these relatives better, and do a lot more introspective thinking than I'm normally comfortable with - good job, old gal.  It's helping me figure out a lot of stuff.  I hope that would've made her happy.