Paradox begins again

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

You'll notice the above statement is one of the Ten Commandments. As I prepare to make the decision about whether to go to my father's funeral tomorrow or not, it has been on my mind a lot the past week or so.

My father died in a high speed chase that was covered on the news in at least two states, and made the front page of the local paper. As the next-of-kin, it became my responsibility to decide what to do with his body--something I never imagined would happen, nor would I have chosen. Upon trying to respect his final wishes to have his body used for scientific research, the mangled state of his body made it impossible to preserve, and different arrangements had to be made. We decided that donating him to the Anatomy Gift Registry would be the most respectful way to accomodate the circumstances--until it was discovered from the toxocology report that he likely died with a highly contagious infectious disease and his wishes could no longer be met at all. Not only that, but for the safety of my family and myself, as well as those who came into contact with him, testing must now be completed to ensure that we were not infected with the disease. These past two weeks have been days of grief and fear that are only comparable to the hell in which I spent my earlier years with this man when he was alive. One thing has become painfully obvious: he could never do anything halfway, and the price that my family has continually paid for his behavior has certainly been high because of that.

Yesterday was probably the hardest day for me as far as emotional repercussions are concerned because of the exhaustion I had brought upon myself with long days and even longer nights. I could have given Jonah a run for his money for how much I just wanted Ninevah to burn. I had not only lost the Spirit, I had practically chased it away from me at the slightest suggestion that honoring such a dishonorable man would be the right thing to do. In my mind, even this was his fault as I nursed my hurt wounds by refusing to allow them to heal, I suppose in some kind of warped hope that they would stand as a testimony against him somehow. But my place in his life was never a judge--a witness at best, but never a judge--and the fact that he has died does not change that at all.

After almost twelve hours of sleep, I feel much better. Our trials are far from over, and the love I'm supposed to feel for everyone involved is coming along slowly, but I'm really trying to keep myself together. It doesn't help that every time I thought the storm was over, something even worse would come along and completely submerge me again, but I honestly don't see how it could get any worse from here. They have to get better from here--and even if they couldn't, I'm going to believe they can, that things will get better from here, and I'll even be happy.

Whether it's once this is all over, or right away, or some time down the road--it doesn't matter. I don't have to be scared anymore. I don't have to be angry, or guarded against a million other things that I could feel, or things that could happen. For the first time in my life, I'm not afraid that some crazy person is going to come crashing through my sliding glass door and knife everyone in my house.

If that's where I have to start on my road to full happiness, then that's where I start.