Sweetheart, it's your decision, as long as it's the same as mine...

 

Thanksgiving. A fun filled day of food and family, appreciation for what you have. A time to forgive and forget and just enjoy the company of each other. A meal can really bring a family together. Then where the hell did everyone go?

I was sitting at my mom's dinning room table. Around me was my mom, dad, brother, sister in law, uncle, grandmother and my boyfriend. My grandmother. A lively, dogmatic 89 year old italian woman, asks me when I plan to baptize Luke, my 8 week old son. I look around for some mental support but it's funny....everyone seemed to dissipate into thin air. I could hear giggling from the kitchen which was right next to the dinning room but separated by a wall. "Mom!" I said loudly. "You're on your own" she said loud enough for me to hear but just low enough for my grandmother's questionable hearing. "Christina", my grandmother says. "Do you plan on baptizing him?" "Daddy!" I say a little louder in my cute little girl voice, hoping for some sympathy. I just hear a giggle. "Jay!!" I said to my boyfriend in a not-so-forgiving voice. I saw him peak around the corner with a shit eating grin on his face.

To make a long story short, my grandmother thinks me and my entire family, including my 8 week old son, will be going to the fiery pits of hell.

Here's the long version...
I'm sitting across from my grandmother, whom I might add, I adore. I'm wearing my usual attire of jeans and t-shirt...with some sort of skull on it. Tattoos of pagan ruins on each inner part of my wrist, "no regrets" on the top part of my arm, a tree which takes up my entire back and a pentagram on the lower part of my back. I have my nose pierced since I was 15 years old, my tongue since 19, and my recent metal addition, my lip, which she hasn't mentioned yet. "What's that in your lip" she said. Ok well that didn't take long for her to notice.  "Why do you let the devil lead you" she said. I thought that was a little dramatic...it was only a hole in my lip. I didn't know the devil preferred lip piercings. That's when she asked me when I was baptizing Luke and that's when everyone vanished into thin air. The devil's work? Just me and her...

I'm not a very religious person. Not at all actually. I don't believe in any religion. I don't believe in a higher power, I don't believe in anything. No god...no nothing. I was raised catholic. I went through it all, baptism, communion and confirmation. They've been waiting patiently for marriage. I went and got knocked up before I got married. Maybe that's when the devil's work began. Where did they go wrong? Her tattooed, pierced, unwed, childbearing first granddaughter.

It doesn't piss me off that she's pushing her views on me. I'm used to that from my family. The conversation with my mother usually goes along the lines of...you were raised catholic and that's what you are. Like my actual beliefs don't matter because I was raised a certain way. It doesn't matter if you believe in my god or your god...as long as you believe in A god. Then I proceed to tell her I don't believe in any god.

I don't look down upon people who believe in god like most non-religious people do. I love religion and I read about it a lot. I've learned about all different types of religion. It's an interesting topic to me. A good concept. It can answer a lot of different unknown questions. How did life begin, who created the universe, why did someone close to me die and what happens. . I envy people who believe in a god. They have someone or something to go to in a time of need. When they're sad or upset or don't know what to do, they can pray. When they do something wrong they can ask for forgiveness. Me? I have to deal with all of these things on my own. I don't believe there is something out there to give me strength and guide me. Just myself.

I went to classes when I was little to teach of the catholic religion. I'm not sure when or why exactly I stopped believing in god. I started questioning things. The main question I asked myself was if god created the universe some 6,000 years ago...there's evidence of life loooong before that. I didn't quite understand that. It didn't add up to me. Did they not speak of the dinosaurs? Did they not speak of the Neanderthals? It made sense how the creation of religion began, when people didn't understand natural disasters or know there were other human type people before us. Thunder, lightening, tsunamis, hurricanes etc. It's a logical thought that someone from the sky created all of these. It made sense to me that people didn't know life existed before humans because there were no archeological findings of dinosaur bones. But we have evidence of all of this now. How thunder, lightening, tsunamis, hurricanes and the like are created and why. These are facts not theories, not stories told by your grandmother who was told from her grandmother who was told from her grandmother. Hard evidence, feasable evidence. You can touch it, look at it.

I think us as humans, intelligent, thinking, evolved beings need to search for truth. And that which we don't quite understand yet and possibly never will, I will not lay upon the hands of god. I will not lay back and say that when I die I will go to heaven or hell or wherever you believe I will go. I can't accept something just because someone told me to. I can't do something a certain way just because that's how I grew up. That's when evolution truly stops. When you stop questioning things and stay the same.

I didn't mind so much that my grandmother was talking to me about her beliefs. I can discuss religion with anyone. What I minded was that simply because I wasn't baptizing my child that she believes the devil is guiding me and me and my children will go to hell. It makes me a bad person in her eyes. I'm probably the only one that talks to her like a human being. Doesn't yell at her or get annoyed with her. I would hand a friend all the money in possession if they needed it and give them the shirt off my back and the shoes off my feet. But these things aren't taken into consideration when defining a person? Simply because I don't believe in god, especially her god. That's pretty close minded to me. She told me" sweetheart, you're the mother and it's your decision". When I told her my decision was to not baptize Luke she said "well I don't think your decision is right". Apparently it's my decision as long as it's the same as her's.