R.I.P Cecilia Hampton
You weren't famous or rich or beautiful or even always very nice, but you were my best friend's mother and therefore played a part in my life.
I remember spending so much of my life at your house between the ages of 11 and 15 that I pretty much lived there.
Even when you got serious about religion and decided that I could only visit with Talenya if I attended Kingdom Hall and bible study with your family, I did it, because it was still often better than being at home with whatever abusive white trash boyfriend my mother had at the time.
I suppose you thought I'd learn to love Jesus if I spent time with Jehovah's Witnesses. Instead, I learned to question every word in the bible and examine it for inconsistancies. By attending all of those Kingdom Halls and Bible studies, I became agnostic and developed an intense dislike for any type of Christian who feels the need to try and force their own beliefs down the throat of others.
Despite this, I truly hope that for you at the moment you died, you found comfort in your beliefs. For your own sake, I hope you realized in that final moment, that you were right about everything.
I remember that you were intelligent and artistic, which always seemed so at odds with the rest of the way you lived your life.
I had the opportunity to be exposed to some culture in white trash Sacramento because of you, since my mother has never really understood the importance of such things.
I'll always remember how you took me to see Les Miserables and the Van Gogh at the Legion of Honor and how you always had something positive to say about my bad teenaged poetry.
I don't know if I learned anything from you, but you are responsible for the best friend I ever had.
She's the only person in the world I'll forgive for being a crazy uber conservative christian republican, because I know for sure that despite that she's still a good person.
I hope your transition from this to that was not painful or frightening for you, and I just wanted you to know that you'll always be remembered.
I remember spending so much of my life at your house between the ages of 11 and 15 that I pretty much lived there.
Even when you got serious about religion and decided that I could only visit with Talenya if I attended Kingdom Hall and bible study with your family, I did it, because it was still often better than being at home with whatever abusive white trash boyfriend my mother had at the time.
I suppose you thought I'd learn to love Jesus if I spent time with Jehovah's Witnesses. Instead, I learned to question every word in the bible and examine it for inconsistancies. By attending all of those Kingdom Halls and Bible studies, I became agnostic and developed an intense dislike for any type of Christian who feels the need to try and force their own beliefs down the throat of others.
Despite this, I truly hope that for you at the moment you died, you found comfort in your beliefs. For your own sake, I hope you realized in that final moment, that you were right about everything.
I remember that you were intelligent and artistic, which always seemed so at odds with the rest of the way you lived your life.
I had the opportunity to be exposed to some culture in white trash Sacramento because of you, since my mother has never really understood the importance of such things.
I'll always remember how you took me to see Les Miserables and the Van Gogh at the Legion of Honor and how you always had something positive to say about my bad teenaged poetry.
I don't know if I learned anything from you, but you are responsible for the best friend I ever had.
She's the only person in the world I'll forgive for being a crazy uber conservative christian republican, because I know for sure that despite that she's still a good person.
I hope your transition from this to that was not painful or frightening for you, and I just wanted you to know that you'll always be remembered.