Roll Call

Okay, this is likely going to offend a lot of people.

Noted.  Let's proceed:

I hate it when people suggest I seek God for comfort to get through this mess.  Like, seriously?  How backwards, is that, exactly?  If he really is in charge of the whole shooting match, then what was he doing on the fifth of July at just past four in the afternoon?

I feel bad saying these things because I know how very important some of my loved ones consider their relationships with God.  But look, I said I would be honest.  This is from my perspective.  This is what I have to go on.

So here goes:

I, Cory, and many others prayed for God to take that stupid illness from her.  Never happened.  I began to pray less for it to be taken, and more for the doctors treating her to be successful in stabilizing her.  Did God make that happen?  Did science?  Who knows?  What I do know for certain is that it was a long, hard, nightmarish journey in the dark, with nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and monsters all around.  No one but Cory and I, and my parents-at least a little- understand just how bad it really was...how bone weary, pull your hair out, bang your head against the wall horrible it was to watch your baby slip away from you day by day.  She was a Carson scholar.  I forgot to have them say at the service.  Stupid, just stupid.

But okay, let's soldier along, with no sleep, with no support from her biological father, on my own for the majority of her illness, depending on my parents and siblings to help out, since neither Tim or Bob's parents had anything to do with her, although they all knew full well what she was going through. 

Lets make our way through that, crawling, like we're stuck in a pipe full of shit for three years.  Let's watch her getting passed up by all her friends as they continue to grow and progress, and she gets stuck, paralyzed with fear by things that weren't real.  Let's listen to her crying her heart out because she thought the police were after her, because she thought I wouldn't love her anymore because she'd killed one of the agents that were following her- stabbed him in the backyard and dragged his body in the house, and hid it under the bed.  Let's watch her eyes, wide as pie plates, as she struggled to understand why I couldn't smell the decomposing body like she did.  "Can't you smell it, Mom?  Can't you smell it?!"

Let's get past the fact that her and I spent night after countless night awake, her terrified, me worried sick while her biological father lived his life like he didn't even have a child, going about his business not knowing if she were alive or dead.  Let's get past Tim coming to pick up Jake for the weekend and not even acknowledging her.  Let's just get to the road, shall we?

Did I call God's name, even if I was used to getting no answer?  You're damn right I did.  Guess what?  Nothing.    Wanna know why?

There wasn't anyone there.  There was Cory splattered on the pavement with her bones sticking out of her flesh. There were EMT who did nothing but look sick to their stomachs. And there was me.

That was the roll call.