Conflicted

I began this entry last week, after hearing some interesting news. This entry spans a week of pondering and wondering. Bear with its jumpiness, but I feel like I need to share this strange thing that is my life.

Last Monday,I can't really find words to describe how I feel at this current moment. As most know, almost 5 years ago I experienced a betrayal beyond anything I could imagine. I lost my mom to domestic violence, and I don't think I go one day without thinking about her. It was all over the newspapers, local and regional. The day she died was well documented for sure.

But Monday I got a phone call letting me know that the perpetrator, the man I grew up calling my step dad. The man that taught me to drive, came to my plays, the betrayer, well he died. He died a quiet death. After a year or so of dialysis, his kidneys gave out. I guess time in prison is draining on a body, and I imagine more so on the soul. The thing that baffles me is how he got to leave so quietly. Hardly a murmur on the radar. Nothing in the papers. No mention of the murderer or the murdered. I did get an automated call from the victims advocates office informing me in that robotic automated voice that the inmate "has died." Its hard to know what all this means. I'm going to the funeral on Monday and all I can think about is how no one will be there. Strange.

One thing I don't feel is sad. I don't feel bad for him. I don't feel sad for him. I feel some sense of freedom. I feel bad for his daughters. I feel like a circle has closed, but know that the issues with the estate and lawsuit will continue. While this should be the end, somehow its not. Talk about joy despite circumstances.

Today, June 15, I went to the memorial service for my stepfather. Over the past week I have had to debate within myself whether or not to go at all. After perusing the obituary, which infuriated me, I decided it best that I go for closure's sake. I did go. I went to the memorial service for my stepfather at the same church, done by the same minister that did my mother's service. That in itself was hard to stomach. But as I sat there with the handful of people that actually came, half of which I knew, no one even acknowledged my presence. They spoke of forgiveness, of his service to God and the community, and I thought to myself, how in the world is this fair? Is it so easy to gloss over the life changing event perpetrated by this man? No mentions of his sorrow or guilt felt at the end. No mention of my mother. In this nearly empty room I sat, enduring glares and ignorance. I sat as people shared about him being their hero. I literally held back the vile taste in my mouth, the hatred that had long since fizzled out. I sat in anger as the minister looked me in the eye and spoke of Dave's baptism into the church, and God being a God of mercy. I loathed the words of the minister, asking that God welcome David home to His arms. I wondered how any of this was possible. But God is GOOD, all the time. God is righteous, ALL THE TIME. Whatever God decides to do, it will be right and true.

As I left that church today, I smiled to myself as I thought of my mother. That church overflowed at her service. They had to put chairs in the hallways to fit the people. Some there out of curiosity, but most having been touched by my mom in some way. Filled to the brims, and that's how I know that she was of God, and doing his work. However flawed and broken she was, she loved. And as I looked around the empty church today, I saw the difference between someone loved and someone lost. I am proud of myself for enduring, but thankful for the support of God, above all, and of those He has placed in my life. May God continue to grant me peace and forgiveness, as He has to wonderfully done in the past. God is GOOD, all the time.