[Serious] Comfort in Faith at Death

[Catholic_Lady]

I can't see that it makes a lot of difference is the comfort is real or imagined - comfort is comfort.  I don't view religious comfort at death or at other times of great stress to be some sort of balance sheet with the rest of theism.  If someone is able to die peacefully due to their faith, all well and good.

Probably the most significant event in my life was the death of my father.  He was an atheist who died peacefully, but I was hammered by friends and relatives offering me religious comfort (it was well know how close I was to Da).  It infuriated me - not because I thought religious comfort was foolish or useless, but because I wasn't able to avail myself of it.

Boru

I find myself jealous and angry at a lot of things right now. I wish I believed all the Heaven bullshit we're tossing around. I hate really old people because my mom's only 61, as of today, and she can't even eat, drink and barely is speaking. I'm annoyed at my cousins, because my mother is the first of eleven children to die, and I think it ought to have been one of the older ones first. I hate some of my aunts and uncles for the same reason. I'm definitely a jealous and angry person. C'est la vie.

I am so sorry to learn about your mother. It's hard to imagine the pain of losing my parents, though I know it's inevitable and something I will have to deal with at some point (unless I go first I guess).

Anyway, I just wanted to say I can relate so much to this anger and jealousy you speak of. When I had my baby loss and was battling infertility for years after, I couldn't help but feel anger at everyone I knew who had young children or was pregnant. Doesnt matter who they were - close friends, family... as much as I loved them, I just felt such an irrational anger and bitterness towards them. I distanced myself from so many people during that time.

I hope you don't feel guilty for it, or think of yourself as less of a decent person for feeling that way. Intense pain and PTSD can bring such unwanted, intense emotions out of us, and unfortunately feelings themselves arent something that we can control. It's been hard to make peace with how I felt during those years, and how I isolated myself from so many people because of it - but I'm trying to be kind to myself. I hope you are too.