We have but Faith (an extra long post)

I was having a good night, and I still am...but something changed.

Here is the situation - I was hanging out with my roommate after spending my day spent with a good friend. My housemate and I were getting stoked about SpringBreak, and then he went to bed.

I was still hopped up, excited about life, the future, and everything. And I went to change my profile picture, and I changed it to an old picture of me. And I went to read what people had written (if anything) about that picture...and I almost cried when I read this

you're one smashing son of a bitch.

meaning: i'm happy we're married.
facebook declares it!

She's dead now. Killed by a drunk driver. Killed the day she came back to the Fox Cities from her new home in North Carolina. She was just going back to visit for a weekend or so. She hadn't even been in town for 24 hours. And then a drunk driver took her life, her life and her friends' lives.

And I'll never see her again. So why am I still having a good night?

In a fucked up way, I was thinking earlier today about the death of someone close to you. And I thought, "What if my brother died?" I'd be broken up beyond belief. I would cry, I would rage. I would sink deeper into alcohol than I ever have before. I would shut everything out and become a hollow, empty person.

I would do all that...if I believed that people didn't care about me. I would do all that if I had no regard for the person that passed away.

As it is, if someone close to me dies, I will never indulge in any of that because I will say something at their funeral and I will say this:
"I am going to read the prologue from Alfred Tennyson's 'In Memoriam'. Tennyson wrote this poem over the course of 16 years after the death of his closest friend. This prologue was the last section of the part of the poem to be written. For most of the poem, Tennyson feels how I am feeling right now - he is lost, confused, angry, and bitter about the loss of his friend. He doubts, he curses, he falters in his faith. But eventually, after 16 years, he comes to this conclusion, and I hope to be able to arrive at this conclusion someday. I am sad, bitter, angry, and confused about the death of (this loved one), and I don't pretend to be anywhere near okay with what has happened. But I know one day I will reach this level of understanding. And I know one day this will all make sense. And I want to reach that day as clear and level-headed as I can, and for that reason, I won't be drowning my sorrows in alcohol or any other substance.
Tennyson's Prologue to "In Memoriam"
* * *
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me;
What seem'd my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.
* * *

I am a neverending fuckup. But this isn't about me. This is about a girl who was killed due to a series of...
...of what? (I wanted to write 'coincidences', but I couldn't)
Was it the "will of God"? Did all her life lead up to that moment? Was it an act of Chaos? Did she somehow choose the fate for herself? Was it just random shit?

She had such plans. She wanted to work with retired elderly people, in a nursing home. She loved old people. She worked hard.

And yes, yes I am glossing over her faults and shortcomings. But goddamn it, she is dead and gone, the very least I can do is not dredge up slightly inconvenient things.

But back to the question at hand...

"Why am I still having a good night?"

Its for the simple reason - in the back of my soul, in my heart; I don't feel a burden anymore. A part of my wants to feel guilt about this, to turn myself into the martyr. But I can't. All I feel at this point is a peace.
I felt this peace in another place.
I was in Auschwitz/Birkenau. I was walking through the rain, by myself, in between the rows of "houses" (shacks) where they kept the prisoners. I started crying. I felt the guilt of a generation weighing down on me. The sins of the past taking over me. I was crushed with the weight of this burden, the death of so many heaped upon me.
Until I felt the hand of a child take my hand. He pulled at me softly, enough to turn me 180 degrees. Turn me back to the direction where I knew all my friends were. I was standing in the rain, in a Deathcamp, alone, and I still felt all the deadeyes of the departed staring at me, but what I heard from this child-guide/spirit changed everything.
Four words.

"It's not your fault"

And I walked back to meet my group, wiping tears from my eyes. And I knew...it wasn't my fault. I wanted to feel guilt for all those dead, but it wasn't my fault. They don't need people feeling guilty over them. They need people who respect them. Period.

The same with her. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault, but she is gone. And that hurts a lot...but there isn't anything I can do...except live my life. Would she (or anybody) want me wallowing around in (self) pity? Crying, drinking, punching holes in walls? Nothing is accomplished through that!!!

So, if someone close to me dies and I start feeling depressed - depressed in a way that I think that drowning myself in alcohol will solve my problems...I think I'll just head on down to the local soup kitchen to volunteer. If I help others, I'll be helping God, and God helps me.

(and I don't think I've ever told anyone ever about what I felt at Auschwitz. Not like that. But I had to get it down into writing eventually. Everything I wrote is a true experience I had. If you don't believe it...go to Auschwitz/Birkenau yourself. Go there, come back, and then look me in the eye and tell me to my face that you can't feel the presence of the Dead/ghosts/spirits/Angels in that place. They exist. And they linger on, not out of spite or malice or hatred...but out of sorrow and regret. Out of a need to let people know that they were there. That It happened. That they live on. They live on in our memories.)

[That last sentence destroyed my ability to write on. I had more to write about that, but it is gone now. Read that last sentence in the parenthesis, and nothing else, and maybe, just maybe, you'll find out why we grieve and feel agony]