My Family

 This is an old post, that I forgot to publish. It was written right after the shooting at my school, Umpqua Community College. It's just some miscellaneous thoughts about my evangelical relatives.

At a family reunion recently, I sat on the floor, and my second cousin's two-year-old grandson started sharing his grapes with me--literally, the same grapes. He was biting grapes in half and putting the pieces directly into my mouth. It brought him such apparent joy to feed the hungry, that I figured I could take immune system supplements later. He kept saying, "apple, apple," while doing it. That's close enough, I guess.

My cousin, whom I call Blue-Butt, was there.
"Hey, Blue!" I almost said, excitedly, "You know your favorite teacher's getting married?! He just proposed to his boyfriend a few days ago--on the boyfriend's birthday!"
I almost said this, because I'm now friends with his favorite high school teacher on Facebook. But then I remembered that I was neck-deep in evangelicals sharing my DNA, so I decided not to say anything. At least not then.

I had a terrifying nightmare the other night, probably because of the recent shooting. I dreamed that my youngest cousin, Red-Butt, had cancer, and wasn't doing anything to get better or start treatments.
"Yeah, I smoke about eight or nine packs of cigarettes a day," he said casually, blowing out a stream of smoke.
I am not sure that that's even possible. Is it physically possible to smoke eight or nine packs of cigarettes a day? It's not like I want to try it.
I woke up terrified, even though Red has never smoked in his life, as far as I know. And the only thing he's done to purposefully harm himself, to my knowledge, was waxing his legs with duct tape and screaming like a little girl to get attention. Twice.
The closest thing he's done to smoking, that I know of, was buy a pack when he turned eighteen and give them to a homeless person. He specifically said that that was what he wanted to do: Buy a pack of cigarettes and give them to a homeless person.
I looked at him closely at the family reunion. He didn't appear to be in ill health. It must have been the shooting that gave me nightmares.

My Late Great Aunt's two daughters were here from another state (I call her my Late Great Aunt because she was really into the end times, and it wouldn't surprise me if she read or watched Hal Lindsey). They inevitably started talking about her literal "last days."
"She was doing that bible study, and they were doing Revelations next. She really wanted to do Revelations. And I was just saying, she doesn't need to do that, because now she's living it. She has all the answers now," one of them said.
Or she could just not know anything anymore, I thought. I hoped I was wrong, somehow, but I found it sad that so many people were counting on an afterlife that may not exist. I was silent, and my extended family does not know that I seriously doubt, at least sometimes, whether there is an afterlife or a god.
"I knew she wouldn't want us to resuscitate her. She had everything planned for her own funeral. She had picked out her favorite hymns, and we had a church service right there. We had an alter call, because that's what she would have wanted. Three people came to the Lord at that service. You should watch the DVD," my relative went on.
It felt weird, hearing about something that would have warmed my heart twelve years ago, but which I now found tragic. Why would anyone need to "come to the Lord" unless they were believed to be in danger of hell? My LGA had the sunniest disposition, and maybe the fewest reasons to have one, of anyone I had ever met.
I guess she never thought of the implications of her scary End Times/hellfire-and-brimstone beliefs. Either that, or the thought of other people perishing in hell just didn't drag her down. I guess you've always got to look on the positive side of things.
I feel rather snarky, when thinking about that, but I really do love her. She was so very nice. And I hope she's at peace, and living on, somehow. But sometimes, my family makes me sad, when they don't wish to fight for the one life they know they have. I guess that's what they've got me for, to nag them. That's something, I guess.