The death of a loved one is perhaps always devastating, no matter how prepared
we think we are.  It's made even more difficult when that love was carefully
built and nurtured across the chasm of cultural differences.

That was the case between my father and I.  Dad was very conservative;  a
devout, and perhaps even fundamentalist, Roman Catholic with a very old world
view of women and our place in the world.  I am quite liberal and, of course,
I am pagan.  I have a very different view than my father's of the place of
women in the world.  This caused untold trouble and tension between us
throughout my childhood and young womanhood.

As we both grew older and more tolerant, we realized that each of us wanted
a better, closer relationship, I with the only father I'll ever have, and he
with his only daughter.  So, slowly and carefully we built a suspension bridge
of tolerance and love, shared views on those few areas on which we could
agree, and on our shared devotion to family, across the chasm between our
worlds.  Periodically we would crawl tentatively out onto that bridge to meet
in the middle, clinging precariously to what security we could find there.

We had both come to trust that bridge in the decade since our first tentative
attempts to build it, and so it was that we met there almost daily in long
telephone conversations about everything and, mostly, nothing.  It was there
that he said "goodbye" in the weeks before he died.  It was subtle, and I'm
not sure he knew he was leaving ... but things were different somehow.  My
father, who had visited me only twice in the 22 years since I left home, when
he happened to be in the neighborhood, and who had not attended either of my
weddings, suddenly started to make plans to come to my home to put air
conditioners in my windows.  (Not something I had planned to do.)  When,
within a week of making those plans, he became too ill to travel, he sent me
the first and only "surprise gift for no special reason" that he ever sent
to me.  It was small -- a bag of mesquite chips for our barbecues, because
I had mentioned that they're a bit expensive up here -- but it was a gift
specifically from my Dad.  The day after I received them, I received word that
he had died.

I think the hardest part of my father's death was venturing out onto that
precarious bridge alone, to cross back over into his world one last time for
his funeral.  I found myself very much alone in my father's world -- welcome,
but a stranger with strange views.  I was surrounded by family and friends
remarkable in their devotion to one another and to their God.  Although my
mother and brothers know who I am, everyone else assumed that I shared their
devotion to my father's faith.  Since I didn't think religious arguments were
going to help anyone through that difficult time, I elected to keep my own
counsel for the ten days I was there.  

Psychologists say that when a parent dies, we have a tendency to question
everything about our lives.  When our lives are a secret to the people we've
grown up with, I think it redoubles the effect.  My first challenge was
figuring out what one does when one is a very visible participant in a
religious ceremony where everyone assumes we share the faith, but we don't.
It seemed to me that even if my 25 years away hadn't removed any possibility
of pretending I was a Catholic, to pretend now would serve only to make a
farce of my family's faith.  But to act like a complete alien to her faith
would be disrespectful and would hurt my mother.  So, I compromised.  I sat,
stood, and kneeled as the ceremony required and kept my head respectfully
bent, but I was silent during the prayers.  

I thought I was doing OK -- until the priest, who had no doubt counseled my
parents about how to handle their only daughter's falling away from the faith,
make several cutting remarks about "faithless, hopeless pagans".  The first
time, I couldn't believe what I'd heard.  The second he looked right at me
as he made his remark.  How little he knows about us.

Through the time I was with them, my immediate family was very, very welcoming
and loving.  Believe it or not, that caused my second dilemma.  I had tried
for many years to believe as they do and all my life I had felt an outsider
in my own birth family.  I know the pain my "falling away" caused both my
parents.  

After a few days of the loving and welcoming, and the constant salvation talk,
I found myself wondering, if I tried again now, whether I might be able to
"believe" this time.  Not for myself, but for my mother and father.  My return
to their church would have made my father so happy, and it would still bring
my mother and brothers great joy.  

Cut off, as I was at this vulnerable time, from anyone who knows what I
believe and who shares my faith in the Goddess and the God and the wheel of
time, it began to seem "silly" and unreal.  Prevented from sharing my real
understanding of what had happened between my father and myself in those last
weeks and my certainty that he would be back, perhaps in the small nephew who
was to be born just 5 weeks after his death, I began to question everything.
It was very painful.  I knew I didn't (and probably couldn't) believe as they
do.  I knew that religion isn't something you choose, like a party dress, to
please someone else.  But I also couldn't feel my own faith.  I felt that all
faith had been cut away from me, and that my soul was raw and bleeding.

Fortunately, I am a voracious reader on almost any topic, and I knew the
effects of mourning can have on one's soul, so I was able to observe these
feelings with a little objectivity.  I resisted the urge to act on anything
until I was home, in my own world.  

When I left for home, my mother sent with me a huge basket of flowers that
had been sent for my father's funeral.  As I carried that glorious basket
through airports, people would stop me to comment on them and ask about them.
It gave me a chance to explain to complete strangers that my father was dead.
Everyone I met that way was extremely kind and the flight attendants were
attentive and caring on every flight.  That was a great deal of comfort.  This
time, as I crossed that bridge my father and I had built together for the last
time, I didn't feel so alone.

When I was finally home, I was still haunted by my feeling of having had all
faith cut away from me.  For weeks I wasn't able to perform ritual, either
for my father, or for myself.  In a sense, I felt he was always nearby and
would be hurt and perhaps insulted to have his beliefs disregarded by my doing
ritual for him.  It made no logical sense.  Since he'd passed through the
curtain, he now knows better than any of us alive, what Truth is.  His soul
is unlikely to be as encumbered by prejudice as those of us who must
understand with our frail, limited little human brains.  But the feeling
persisted; the effect, no doubt, of my own childish guilt at wanting to do
something that Daddy wouldn't approve of.  (I have a very active inner
toddler.)

I reached out to all the wisest pagans I know to ask for thoughts and
reaffirmation.  Many shared with me thoughts that brought me great comfort,
and one especially wise soul shared with me a ritual that could respect both
my father's beliefs and my own.

Gradually, as the moon waxed, I too, grew stronger.  As the full moon
approached, I gathered the supplies I needed for what I had to do.  On the
day after the full moon, I set up a memorial to my father on my altar.  A
photograph of the man he was; a white pillar candle that burns as long as
anyone is in the house and awake; a beautiful little glass box containing a
few of the mesquite chips that were his last gift to me; and the basket of
now dried flowers from his funeral.  Each time I light the candle, I tell my
father that I love him, and will miss him, but that it's now time to move on.
I send him the energy of the burning candle to find his way into his next
world, whether it be the heaven he so looked forward to, or a new life.

On the next full moon, I will do a ritual alone, commending my father's soul
to his God.  I'll be asking my Gods and Goddesses for support in learning to
live without my father in the middle of that bridge we've built from the tears
and yearnings of two very different souls who wanted to love and understand.

48 responses total.

Thanks for posting this article.  Hope the ritual is satisfying and *right*.

Thanks, Kami!  A lot.

To everyone, I'm sorry to post something so long but it seemed worth sharing
since many (most?) of us will face that "across the chasm" thing at one time
or another to one degree or another.

Your statement about seperation of faith made me think of when my Mjolnir
pendant broke while I was working on July 3rd of this year.  When I realized
that the pendant was missing from the chain, I felt not only the break in the
chain but a break in something spiritual.  When I found where the pendant part
of the necklace was, I noticed it was broken right on the ring that goes
around the chain, allowing it to dangle.  One of the times I went to the
bathroom that night, I asked my gods what I had done to offend them because
I had felt a spiritual rupture as well as lonliness and my theory about the
pointlessness of everything.

My faith is still weak, but it is coming back.  However, since I am surrounded
by Islam at work, my faith is kept suppressed.  Last night, however, I came
to the conclusion that the building I work in is devoring my soul.  I also
remembered that I should fight to keep my faith, as my experience in Malaysia
left a scar on my soul that will never completely heal.  I do think, however,
that part of Joanna's possession of me on a voluntary basis on my part helped
to heal my soul - much as her positive energy was painful to me the day of
her funeral, it made me feel better the next.

Still, in my state of weak faith, I continue to long for death (to be reuinted
with Joanna, mostly), but am afraid, because I think my very soul is being
weakend by the forces of the building where I work, as well as the probability
of me being the only pagan who works there.

Thanks Misti for the chance to read your thoughts here. I found myself
drifting apart from my own son, and an angry message from him yesterday made
clear how little we have in common. I was quite ready to cancel a visit to
him in East Lansing on Sunday, but realized how tragic it would be to allow
this kind of thing to fester. We all need to reach out, as you did, to the
people we love, to forgive them their bad-tempered outbreaks, and to build
relationships, even when they seem most hopeless. 

        Is this from an article, or original?  Either way, it's a wonderful
and thoughtful contribution to this conference.

I wrote it as an article to be published in a pagan newsletter ... but mostly
as a healing for myself.  Thanks, Jazz and John.

        It's well-written, but you're doing a disservice to yourself not
submitting it to a more widely-read publication.

   wow, misti.  wow.  thanks for so eloquently expressing a number of
things that have been bothering me since my mother died (although i
am still in the broom closet to my family).

Thanks, Jazz -- but I have no idea who'd want it beyond my own little circle.

Thanks, Dru, I'm glad i could say something meaningful to help you.  If you're
still in the broom closet to your family, your mother's death must have been
even harder for you to cope with.  Even though I couldn't talk about it
much,my mother and brothers did know.  (As did my father.)  

        Misti, I wasn't thinking so much in terms of who'd want it, as who'd
benefit from reading it.

Any suggestions?  <grin>  Somehow I don't think Readers Digest would find a
use for it.  ;)

Seriously, I'd consider publishing if I had any idea who might run it.  I've
been surprised, but very, very gratified by the repsonse this essay has had
and I could stand a little more gratification this summer.  ;)

        Hahahaha, yes, Reader's Digest.  I don't think they're ready.

There are numerous Pagan publications which might consider running this. I'd
try Green Egg, just for kicks. 

Hmmm, there's an idea.  I haven't read them in years...

        It's precisely non-Pagan publications that need this kind of writing.
Imagine what would happen the next time someone starts getting down on
someone because they're Irish-Celtic, and then they remember the article ...
okay, perhaps I'm being an idealist.

Getting it published by such a magazine would be extremely hard -- except
maybe Utne or Mother Jones -- but they tend to be looking for a different soet
of article.

then submit it to Reader's Digest. if you *know* you're going to get a
rejection letter, it's not such a big deal, and you might accidentally get
an acceptance letter. what the hell =} 

Parabola. 
Actually, Brighn has a point there, about Reader's Digest...Goferit.

You folks are aware that Reader's Digest is owned by a religious (Christian)
group, aren't you???

Why don't I find that information surprising.

#19> Point?

        Didn't Christ preach tolerance for all? :)|

Unfortunately, the Bible not only contradicts itself from Old to New
testament, but also withing the same chapter.  Gensis, for example.

        So it's acceptable to use inflammatory statements about Christianity,
but not others about your beliefs?  I see.

That's not a flame. That's the truth, stated simply and not in a hostile
or condescending manner. 

Thank you, brighn.  (failing to resist the urge to use a gaming reference):
Jazz, you critically failed your interpretation/perception check.

        There's a difference between "flaming" and "inflammatory", Paul -
I'm sure you're aware of it.

        #26:  That's so twittish that there's just no reply.

        See, that was flaming. :)

You're right, John, there is. 
the comments that you made some time ago, that bjorn critized, were flames
and flame-baits.
the comment bjorn made was inflammatory.
happy?

re: resp:21 (which was re resp:19)

My point is that the suggestion was made that I submist my essay to Reader's
Digest ... and it's so thoroughly pagan in outlook that I can't see how I
could rewrite it keeping the point and still making it palatable to RD's
self-selected audience.

        The Xtian bible was much better befor the Esclesiastical (spl?) Council
of 485 AD, this papal group re-wrote major parts of the original, writting
out such thing that they believed werr common knowledge, givens like
re-incarnation and the many god and goddess involved with Yahweh.

Your spelling looks right, birdnoir.

29> I knew what your point was. I'd already said the article has nearly no
chance of being accepted by RD, but it's a strange strange world.

        Ecclesiastical.  I think you're referring to the Deuteronical
revisions, which occured almost eight hundred years earlier, and consolidated
two different sets of polytheistic (but worshipping one diety, and with
notable theological differences) legends, those of the Baalist and the
Yahwist.  The Yahwists were the monotheistic-seeming ones, but both the
Baalists and the Yahwists worshipped the same diety, often known by a host
of different names.  The Yahwist disgust for the Baalist polytheism is evident
throughout the OT.

        Now the Council of Constantine was responsible for the removal of a
lot of apocrypha and for any hint of Gnostic bent in the NT.  Many Gnostics
did believe in reincarnation, and later incarnations of Gnosticism worshipped
the Goddess Sophia, or, Wisdom, if somewhat obliquely.  But that wasn't really
a part of the popular religion.

All very interesting points, but perhaps it is time that this particular
discussion move to its own item?

Misti:
Your article is very beautiful.  It has brought new understanding to me.
<font wipes tears from her eyes> 
I wish I'd had more of a bridge to my father before he died...  The bridge
had fallen when I wasn't looking.  I'm still fighting with how to honor
him without making myself uncomfortable.
Have you considered sending this article to "The Sun"  ?

What's _The Sun_?

It's a large yellow-white ball of fire that provides light for our planet,
Misti.

It's also an alternative religious mag.  Check the Utne Reader
for contact info, they usually have an ad and/or article in it.

OK, thanks Rob.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss