Atheism.. I still understand Mom & Dad's need to pray for me

From this past Thursday through tomorrow (Sunday), my mom is at a retreat called Cursillo, where she will give a talk on some of her experiences in life and will attribute most of it to her faith in God and Jesus.  As much as I disagree with this way of thinking, I still have much respect for her and my dad, which is what led me to do something Wednesday evening.

As most of you know by now, my MS has been attacking me since earlier this week but I hadn't shared this information with my parents, mostly because my mother was going to be away for a few days and I didn't want her thoughts to be on me.  The more I pondered this, the more I believed she would appreciate knowing what I was going through, even though she could do nothing to help.  Well, I knew she could do nothing to help me but in her mind, she could pray and that would be her way of doing something for me even though it would be futile.  But you see, I had to respect her way of thinking and share anyway.  Being an Atheist doesn't mean I don't have an open mind when it comes to my parents.  They are both Christians.  Catholic, to be exact.  This is who they are and I love them for who they are, despite being Catholic!  And they love me, despite my being an Atheist.

Without even asking my mom what she thought of my sharing with her, I know it meant a lot because she knows my thoughts on how ineffective prayer is, yet I accept her as she is, she takes me as I am and I accept ME as I am and am secure in this.  I never want my parents to feel I am closing them out of my life because our philosophies are worlds apart.  At the same time, the three of us try to do good but for different reasons.  I do my best to live a good life for the sake of being a good person.  It's simply the right thing to do.  I do not need any rewards for the way I live.  I am fully aware they feel I am completely misinformed and totally off my rocker in how I view christianity, yet I see them as the ones who are unaware of reality in this regard.  But they are wonderfully good people so I do my best not to judge them as I could not ask for better, kinder parents than the ones I have.

My wonderful parents, 1998 (they still look the same!)

Life is all about acceptance and learning to tolerate things in which we are not in agreement.  For example, abortion.  Am I in favor of it?  No, not really.  But then again, who am I to decide for every other woman what to do with her life?  I could not have an abortion, but that is how I would react.. but what if I was a victim of rape?  Or incest?  Or what if I had become pregnant and my MS had gotten so much worse that I had to decide between having someone else practically raise my child for me because I was single and had no way of doing it for myself?  These are questions that I'm lucky I have never had to answer for myself but others have had to face.  And the same goes for same-sex relationships or marriage.  Who am I to judge?  Love is love!  If two people are in love, go for it!  It is completely beyond my realm of thinking that anyone would even care or be affected if a gay or lesbian couple chooses to wed.  More power to them!  See my parents up there in the pic?  They'll be married forty-six years in June and why shouldn't same-sex couples be allowed to have the same?  People need to learn to accept life or just tolerate that which they can't comprehend and let it be.

Me with my daddy :)

At this moment, I'm sure my mom and dad are both praying for me and I'm perfectly fine with that.  How could I not be fine with this?  They do it out of love for their only daughter who is afflicted with a chronic disease that is taking so much from her.  Prayer is how they help me when they can't physically be by my side and that's perfectly fine with me.  And every time I say good-bye to my parents, I kiss my dad on the cheek and mom takes her thumb and traces a cross on my forehead and says "que dios te acompañe" ("may god go with you").  She would not be my mom if she didn't do this and I love her for it.  We have accepted each other for who we are and wow, do we ever love one another!

Mom and me on Xmas (not sure what year)