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Death Matters



I'm about to leave on a road trip to Utah right now, traveling a road to the heart of a world I have left and that I despise. A road I travel too often. I'm going there to mourn the death of my cousin Meda.



http://m.legacy.com/obituaries/deseretnews/obituary.aspx?n=meda-maureen-barker&pid=188033861&referrer=0&preview=True#sthash.fPspQM5J.gbpl



I'm sad and scared. I will be in the car with my family who are all still in the church. I'll be in my jeans and Star Wars t-shirt and they'll all be in white button downs, ties, black slacks, and repressive dresses. I'll be wishing I could have a drink and share a buzz and tears with those who share my grief, they will be eating heavy starches and sickly sugars and convincing each other they should not be sad.



That is what Mormons try to teach other at times like this. Have an eternal perspective. She is with our other dead loved ones. We will see her again and it will be more real, better, than when we knew her here. We should be celebrating, not grieving.



Not only does this not help the hurt, it compiles hurt upon hurt. It is the inflation that the "eternal perspective" puts upon life. It falsely grants believers the right to shame beautiful people like Meda simply for loving her wife, supposing that this too will be made up in the end. This judgment, this hate, is also not real in the ultimate, eternal, perspective.
Well you don't get another chance to love her. You will never get the chance to see her more, understand her better. The credit of your time with her is maxed out like the cards that fund your MLM schemes.
Have a real eternal perspective. Look the chaos and infinity of time surrounding your experience and account for the wonderful privilege of your being. This time is all you get, these relationships are all you get. Death matters. It is real. It is permanent, and the opportunities you wasted assuming there was an infinity beneath your life are never coming back. That infinity is an abyss. Don't cache your love there. It will slide away from you beyond the gaze of peep stones.
I love you and I'll miss you Meda.

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