Oliver Smith
More thoughts on Kirby, who died 09/04/2005
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Oliver Smith
More thoughts on Kirby, who died 09/04/2005 < CyberPoet.com < Jim Smith home < Writing < Essay Index |
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More thoughts on Kirby,
who died 09/04/2005 10/23/2005 A few weeks before Kirby died I received the following missive from my mother (via land mail): 
Generally, as was the case this time, I let Roseann read the messages from my mother, who then (in turn) summarizes the information. That way I can avoid the frequently manipulative comments that I find abusive. The main reason that I actually read this letter was because of her comments about Kirby. As I think about these statements I find myself increasingly angry with the flagrant disregard for Kirby's life and perspectives. The fact that she made these statements was not surprising to me because she has, throughout my life, launched disrespectful references to Kirby at any and all opportunities to do so. The only person she reserves more sarcasm for is my dad, or possibly me (the classic prodigal son). I can attest to the forty years of denigration that she has emitted towards my father. I can only surmise the rhetoric that she directs towards me and my life when she talks about me to others. Growing up in my mother's cultic world of christian fundamentalism I became accostomed to the sniping, hateful and dismissive attitudes that pervades such circles towards those who adhere to a different set of assumptions with respect to the universe, culture and spirituality. I would expect the same kind of behavior to persist when my own death occurs, but to see the comments expressed in this letter by mother, combined with the apparent (referred to) collusion brought about by Andrew, Kirby's own son, I have to come to terms to just exactly how depraved cristian fundamentalism really is, when they conduct themselves in the manner of vultures awaiting for the remains of some dying lifeform to devour. Except in this case they are seeking to coerce a "conversion" in the final days of an individual's life. To me, this is the ultimate disrespect that someone can direct at a person who is dying, that is, that the dying person's life possessed no value and that they HAVE to accept, before that final breath, a particular world view in order to be saved from (and/or gain access to) a particular afterlife. Now, we all follow different paths in this life, and there are a plethora of perspectives that we can stumble upon while wandering along those paths. We make decisions based upon those perspectives and we make adjustments when we take note of the outcomes stemming from those decisions. Ultimately, we find ourselves on the threshold of death's door and we are left with no choice but to walk through it. If we have the luxury of reflecting upon the life that has passed before we move on to what the Italian's call the "al di là", the otherworld, I would like to think that others would at least offer respect for our individuality, our uniqueness, our right to choose the path that we have taken and the process that we used make our decisions along that path. This effort to "witness" to someone in an effort to bring them "back" to a particular "lord" before they walk through that door is basically saying that the path that the dying person was following in their life was wrong, that the decisions that they made on that path were wrong and that the process used to make those decisions was wrong. In my opinion, this is nothing more than yet another example of fundamentalists (in this case christian) violating the personal boundaries of others. I feel badly that my uncle had to be subjected to that kind of disrespect in the final days of his life. I have made it clear to Roseann that I do not want anyone next to my death bed if they can't respect who I was in my life and the path that I have chosen to follow.
The End
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( Count from 08/09/2003 ) |