Taking advantage of the current atmosphere in which grief must be publicly expressed, instead of nursed quietly in private, Priscilla Blossom, writing for Salon, attacks those primitive God-believers who tell her that her premature baby, who died after eight hours of life, has gone to heaven.
Blossom, an avowed atheist, writes, “Margaret Hope (or Maggie, as we refer to her) continues to exist with us in her own way, but this persistence has absolutely nothing to do with god or Jesus or angels or any other specific afterworld. This is what works for us as parents.”
Blossom protests, “Being an atheist in a believer’s world can be difficult at times, especially when some of the more fervently religious are close family or friends. It’s even more daunting when faced with grief and death.” She allows that her husband, raised Catholic, asked for Maggie to be baptized, which she tolerated, noting, “Later, as reality hit harder, he would lose all faith as I had done.”
Trying to arrange a memorial service, Blossom accepted the idea of holding it at a church of which she approved. Why? “They were supportive of the LGBTQA community, plus their commitment to serving the homeless made me feel like this was a place I would be comfortable bringing my daughter, even after death. In a small, cosmic joke, we also appreciated the fact that the pastor was named “Hunter” Thompson.”
Why would someone refuse to be comforted, insisting that others’ perceptions were invalid? Could it be that the writer is angry at something other than God?
That wasn’t satisfactory; “I became tired and even resentful of the comments about my daughter needing to go be with Jesus. Worse still, I isolated myself so I wouldn’t need to hear their ‘comforting’ words because all they did was make me feel worse.”
Why would someone refuse to be comforted, insisting that others’ perceptions were invalid? Could it be that the writer is angry at something other than God?
You bet it can.
It made me want to shake people until they realized that maybe she died simply because people die. Maybe she died because there were errors made in the care I received at the hospital I visited twice in the week before she died, where those who saw me shrugged off that I was spotting without reason. Maybe she died because I was unable to visit a new doctor because the office refused to see me without receiving the paperwork from my previous doctor in Miami, whose office continuously forgot to fax over my records, leaving me without regular medical care for weeks. Maybe she died because I had experienced tremendous stress after being fired from my job due to early pregnancy complications that required me to miss work, causing me to go on Medicaid in the first place, resulting in the aforementioned doctor shuffle.
When Moses was on Mount Sinai, he asked God to show him His face. God answered that Moses could see only him from the back. One explanation for the episode is that one can be recognized from the back, but in order to know what the other is thinking, one must see the face, and God prefers that we don’t know what He is thinking, as that would invalidate free will.
Blossom has the right to be angry; her grief at losing a child must not be minimized. But to claim that life exists without purpose, that when bad things happen the only recourse is to reject God or those who venerate Him, leaves the atheist in the position described by Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov: “Where there is no God, all is permitted.”
Which, of course, is why Salon published the piece in the first place.