On Humanity & Nostalgia

A Story by Shy

A visit to my hometown with new, grown-up eyes facilitated a nibble from the writing bug.

I pretended to be a God-fearing, born-again Christian for a lot of today, in a feeble but somewhat successful attempt at camaraderie with the fellowship of my childhood church.

I earned the trust of one Cheryl Ryer - a sweet, talkative lady who saw in me a kindred spirit and placed her trust in me by telling me of her wounded childhood, straying from her strong spiritual foundations in the Lord for but a moment to tell of her so-very-human trials and tribulations, only to be interrupted and cut short and for me to be promptly invited into friendship by way of letters and emails.

Generations apart we may be, there are still countless commonalities in our hearts. And when the occasion arises that her humanity senses a similarly sensitive soul, my human heart is warmed; for it seems she can't help but acquaint herself with them.

And yet it's true: I was indoctrinated into this congregation, too young to know and understand its follies. Unwittingly, I was made to join the worship of a man-made, vengeful, jealous war god; a god who so loved the world he flooded it when his own creatures displeased him, and who created eternal damnation yet preaches forgiveness and mercy, and who is somehow the son of himself sent in the flesh - he who cannot truly be killed - to shed blood and roleplay a sacrifice to save his own children from a fate only he himself doomed them to.

At this age, I can no longer unsee the illusion. And yet I feel the hearts of the believers, especially of Cheryl, and how unending and expansive their love for their god is, the palpable comfort and tranquility he brings when they find themselves weary and weak, the security he brings in life and in death, in grief and in revelry, the necessary companionship he provides in times of unabating loneliness and needless suffering. I see this belief in practice, a creation so utterly human, and I find myself rejoicing with them in spite of my disbelief.

I feel at peace. I feel like this is perhaps the most important trip of my life so far - a last look at the people I love and adore and spent the majority of my important developmental years carefully observing and being accompanied by. The hairs on their heads have fully whitened but they show their age with grace and beauty - they carry an unimaginable wisdom in their eyes. Lives of pain and sorrow and confusion but ultimately love and connection and finding meaning in their sweet, precious sliver of life.

I am inspired by them. I feel the weight of their years and the joy they still have room to impart and I feel at ease that I can see them, at least once more, before my life is forever altered by their passings. I don't want to assume or prophesize but I feel like this was the final wake-up call to fully realizing and becoming aware of the passage of time.

I adore them - all of them - including the members of the congregation, most of whom I disagree with in morality and belief. Yet they are all so jovial and unashamed in their humanness, so wonderfully mortal and imperfect.

I have much to learn from the generations that have come before me, and even more still from the years I have yet to live.

Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger" and "The Logical Song": the musical backdrop to the drive home from my Aunt Wendy's. A formerly broken soul and someone whose kindness and infectious energy was a product of years of steady carving - carving out a place for herself among her loved ones and dear relatives. The fellow peacekeeper.

I see in my aunt, with her snow-white hair and striking blue eyes, laugh lines that show a life well smiled. I see hope breaking through despair and love breaking through indifference despite all the years that attempted to smite her. I witness the mind of a carefree young girl disguised in the weathered body of a wise woman, seemingly unaware of the time gone by and all at once enamored with life itself in the presence of a piece of her past - me, her vagabond niece.

How fitting it is that I met my own niece for the first time today. I see in her what I thought had died in me years ago. The part of me that Aurora partly revived and I'm frankly doing a bad job at keeping alive. I look in her bright and wild eyes and I see an innocence yet unblemished and a little girl who is certainly her mother's daughter - my sister's daughter.

In the first moments of meeting, a wary and shy child; in the moments after, when her intuition designated me as safe company, her personality began to blossom like a lotus flower, opening up her heart and soul to a long lost sister she never knew she had. I felt the presence of something long since unfelt. To be physically leaned upon as a pillar of comfort by a child that only just learned of my existence... Never have I felt such a humble honor. In that moment, I knew that my beautiful sister still lived through her spirit. And for that, I think, I am most grateful.

To the lessons I still have yet to learn and the wondrous and miserable feelings I have yet to feel: I will come for you. I will make space for you. I will experience you in your entirety and participate, gladly, in the cycle of the human condition and try my hardest to maintain gratitude for my extraordinary and gloriously insignificant wonder of a life.

However momentary such a consciousness is makes no difference to me. I am glad to have been brought forth out of the dawn - and I should be happy that one day my dearest loved ones and I shall return to the dusk - to dust - back home, from whence we arose.