Why they chose death

Are you in Heaven Tobey? Can I come visit? Will you let me stay?

I was never a religious type of person. That didn't mean I didn't go to church, didn't try to think if they really was a God above.

Since I was young, my Penocastol church has taken a great toll in my life.

My Dad he attended there along with his brother and sister, and his parents. So when my mom and him got married and I came along in the picture, we started going there as well.

Not regularly, because we did live about an hour away but when I would go it was actually kind of cool. Watching the people, watching reactions and watching everything. I found it amazing, but that didn't mean I was religious.

A big brown building, that welcomes you with a long driveway, 2 fields of grass, one on each side, fun to slip on when winter calls. And a huge rock, imprinted with the name of the church in bold, brick letters. Shouting “Hey look at me. Come stop by”

I guess I did belive in a certain extent of God, and I did kind of talk about it a lot once upon a time. It was something a little like this for me:

I was raised learning these ways, but I had been asked the questions “what makes you right and my opinion wrong” well, i was raised one way and you were raised the others. So I didn’t argue, and I would talk to my friends about my God, about being saved because I didn't want the people I cared about to be damned.

but then; (dun, dun, dun)

Then one year hit, harder then a fast baseball going 90 plus miles per hour, smacking you right dab in the stomach where you have to double over, cough for breath, wheezing for the rest of your life. Now scarred where you must wear it for as long as you should live.

Now my life was never perfect, my parents weren't perfect, my school, my friends, nothing was perfect but I still was surprised when everything happened.

I was a fragile tiny child, too young to really understand what was going on,

too young to be told my parents were doing drugs,

that we were losing our house,evicted; soon pushed out on the street when having no electricity was too much for us to handle.  

that my grandma was dying and she wouldn't make it much longer.

Too young, but old enough to blame God for these things.

Why would he allow these things to happen to good people?

Our whole family served you, prayed to you, arms raised, tears down our faces or we fall down to our knees praising; over and over and over

“Thank you Jesus, Hallelujah. We love you God, we worship you.”

In months time, I had lost all my faith, had questioned everything I had ever known. My whole life was a lie, I was a lie. And when my Uncle died not even 2 months after my doubts, it was confirmed. I had lost everything I ever thought i knew.