Belief

“In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith, a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. … If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol cigarettes. Why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give the other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? …. I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his image … my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.”

-from “Jesus Shaves” in Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Let me begin by saying that I am truly sorry if anything I am about to say offends anyone. I know that not everyone will agree with what I say below. I am not trying to step on anyone else’s beliefs – I’m just trying to deal with the death of my friend in any way I can.

For the past eleven days, I have had a hard time thinking about anything except the life and death of my friend Stephen. For over a week I’ve been struggling to accept that he is gone. I’ve been staring at pictures of him, digging out old notes and emails that he sent me, reading his writing, and writing down anything I can remember about him – always hoping that in all this, I will stumble across a way to bring him back. I so desperately want to bring him back, and some piece of me is still thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I love him hard enough and remember him clearly enough, he will reappear.

But of course I cannot bring him back. Nothing can bring him back now.

Stephen is the first close relative or friend that I have lost. My paternal grandparents and one uncle have passed during my lifetime, but I honestly did not know any of them very well. Stephen, on the other hand… Stephen I knew. I can still hear his voice in my head, still predict what he would have said at various moments, still remember what he liked to eat, the TV shows he watched, and the things that pissed him off. Stephen is my first real experience with death, and I’ve been surprised to find how much this experience has challenged my beliefs.

Where is Stephen? Do I believe that he is in heaven? What does heaven look like? Does he have some form of body and face, or is he just some kind of amorphous spirit? Does he have awareness of who he is (or who he was)? Does he remember me? Can he see me or hear me?

Before Stephen died, if someone asked me if I believed in life after death, I think I would have said yes. Unlike Stephen himself, I just did not believe that when someone dies, they just disappear completely. But now that I’m forced to think about the details, now that I have someone to picture there, I have found that I am not so sure.

There are a large number of things I am certain that I do not believe, now. I definitely do not believe in the pearly gates. I also do not believe in hell. If there is a heaven, there is no line to get in and no sorting process. I don’t believe in a God that would enforce entrance criteria.

Most emphatically of all, I do not believe that “God has a plan.” In fact, it has made me angry whenever someone says this to me in relation to Stephen’s death. I do not and cannot believe in a God that would plan to give both of my mother’s parents terminal cancer when they were in their fifties. I do not believe in a God that would plan to endow one of my dearest and most caring friends with a lifelong battle with depression. And I do not believe in a God that would plan to snuff out Stephen’s life when we was 27 and so excited and happy about what was to come. I don’t believe in that God, and I can’t understand how anyone can.

And with thoughts like that, I’ve had to step back even farther and ask myself the most basic of questions: Do I believe in God at all? This question wasn’t a hard one for me, though. The answer is yes. I’ve asked myself this one several times during the darker periods of my life, and I’m solidly convinced that God exists. I’m not denying evolution. I definitely concede that our physical bodies, instincts, and even intelligence were probably honed over thousands of years of natural selection. But after experiencing the heights of emotion – being desperately in love, completely heartbroken, and now losing a cherished friend – I’ve never been able to convince myself that the soul developed through evolution. Naked science may have created my body and even my mind, but I believe that there is a God that created my capacity to love.

So, given that I believe that God exists, that opens up the possibility of heaven or at least some kind of afterlife. And of course I want to believe that the people I love continue to exist in some contented state, be it in some sort of heaven or even in spiritual form here on Earth. But I’ve really struggled with this one. I want to believe that Stephen heard everything I have said to him over the last week. I want to believe that he saw how many people came to his funeral, and saw how much he will be missed. But do I? Can I open my mind enough to believe that?

I do feel some sense on his presence now and again. I swear that on the day I got back home from his funeral, as I unpacked my overnight bag, I felt as if he watched me and then rode piggyback on my shoulders for a while. But I ask myself, was that really him? Did he really come back to visit me? Or is that just my brain’s manifestation of his memory? Is it is just another way that I am trying desperately to bring him back?

That’s what Stephen would have believed. That all that was left was his memory.

I really wanted to end this post by saying that I believe he is here with me. I have spoken and prayed to my Grandma Jane, who died before I was born, many times in my life. So up until now, I really believed. I really want to believe, now. But I am still working on it.

The thing that really gets me, though, is that the first person I would have wanted to talk to about this is Stephen. I so wish I could tell him how I am feeling. Stephen stood alone in his beliefs for a lot of years, and I think he would have appreciated a conversation where someone told him something other than that he was wrong.

I don’t know if you’re out there, Stephen. I don’t know if you really came to visit me on Saturday. I don’t know if you can hear me when I talk to you, or if you can somehow read this. But, just in case you can, there are some things that I want you to know.

Stephen, I hate that you died. I hate it. I will never get over the unfairness of it. I’ve said this over and over, but I’ll say it again: I would do ANYTHING to bring you back, and there’s probably some small part of me that will never stop trying.

I should have been a better friend to you. I should have been honest and told you that I have my share of doubts about my faith and I always have. I should have talked to you more about writing; it’s a love that we share and that I never really told you about. I should have offered to read your writing. I should have sent you mine. I should have told you every time we spoke how you made me feel prettier, funnier, smarter, and more accomplished than anyone else ever has.

On the day of your funeral I made you a promise to remember you as you were, not through rose-colored glasses that turned your memory into some idealized figure. So in that spirit, let me say that you were not perfect. You were always late. You procrastinated. I had to literally kick you in the ass to get you to do the stuff you said you would for retreat crew. You thought farting was hilarious until the day you died. You did horrendously inappropriate things at formal occasions.

But I loved you, despite and because of all that. And if you are still out there, Stephen, I hope you will come to visit me and hear me when I call. You deserve to live on – and though I can’t honestly say I’m sure I believe it, I hope you do.