Religion, The Quiet Room, and 7th Heaven

I was trying to remember the other day if I cried at my father's memorial service. I don't think I did. I do remember getting very angry during my teenage years about his death; mad at him, mad at God, mad at mom. I remember holding on to that anger for many years following and almost using it as a crutch and an excuse for shortcomings, which could have been hormones or could have just been crazy teenage banter, because when I look back now, I realize that I wasn't mad at any of those things, I was really taking on a form of extreme self-pity.

I have, in recent years, been trying to reconnect to the faith that I had when I was young and innocent, unaltered by the ways of the world. There has been a war raging within in me between my heart and mind and I knew I loved my church, but wasn't sure how in love with God I actually was, or if He even existed.

The night that you died was one of extreme madness. When someone dies at the hospital they put you and members of your family in this very tiny 8x8 room in a distant corner of the ER. All of the chairs are facing each other, almost as though they are forcing you to look into the face of the grieving relative that has just been exposed to the most horrid news of their being. I was able to sit in that room for about 30 minutes before I felt like the walls started closing in. After having to retell the tragic story and console the about the fifth relative, I realized that they should actually rename that room the Insanity Room. It should almost be a feat to conquer on Fear Factor: "Survive this and you advance to the next level". As I waited in that room, watching your Grandmother, aunt, cousins, father, and brother cry and go in and out of reality, I realized this was like hell on earth.

At some point, be it 3:00 or 5:30, while waiting for mom to arrive from Savannah along with our only other surviving sibling, I sat trying to prep myself to hold it together in the moment that would come that we would have to create a barrier of protection and literally hold up our grieving mother. I am not sure when it first came, or if it was an adverse reaction to lack of sleep, 12 pots of coffee, the in and out nausea, or just the emotional blackout that the combination of these things create, but I suddenly had this memory of the television show 7th Heaven. Specifically, I was remembering the countless of times, when you were about 7 and I was 15 (trying desperately to be cool with my friends), and every Monday night when 7th Heaven would come on you would run down the hall to my room at full speed and burst into my room and sing at the loudest decibel that you could reach sing "7th HEAVEN!". I would yell at you and slam the door in your face and then from behind the closed door we would hear you quietly say "Ouch" because the door hit you in the head.

I don't know what brought that memory to me that night but it replayed in my head over and over again. I think about it in hindsight and wonder: "Did I find God and was that my soothing memory?" It was like I finally let go and let the moment wash over me and in the same moment I found clarity. People might think it is crazy but I am hot headed by nature and find it hard to control my emotions but when faced with the adversity, nasty comments, and ignorance that I have seen in the last two weeks I can literally think of that moment and I am able to brush it off and walk away in complete peace.

This makes me laugh because I truly hated that show for so many years of my life and it now brings me the only comfort I have. It brings me the peace that I have been searching for so long, who would have thought? When I cry into my pillow and I feel a wave of peace, when after another pointless day of work I start to cry on the drive home but am stopped by a calmness, all because of you. Perhaps God and I found each other that night in a moment of clarity among a string of moments full of grief, sadness, regret, and questions I might have found what it was that I have been searching for my entire life.

I can only hope that you have found the peace that you deserve and are having (excuse the pun) a hell of a time in heaven.

Love you.