Checking in

It's been fairly calm here so far, all told. Mike is mostly dealing with the business that needs to be done-- funeral and internment arrangements, obit listings, deciding what to do with Dale's stuff, that sort of thing. He's holding up incredibly well, all considered, but he sort of has to. I'm sort of just flying blind, myself, doing what I can when I can, but still feeling very weird, and almost intrusive on something so intimate that I'm not really a part of since I never really knew Dale well, and I've never been all that comfortable with the family, given the religion issue (among other things, like his dad being a total prick), and what that means for how they deal with me.

The service is Saturday, at the church, which is going to feel strange. I don't do well with heavily religious services as it is, even for positive things like weddings, so this is going to be weird. Every time I'm somewhere where people start praying, I feel like a heretic because I don't pray with them. I don't lower my head, close my eyes, whatever. I just go into respectful silence while they say their words. I don't believe in deities, nor in prayer (although meditation and the occasional desperate, spat plea to the cosmos for some thing or other I find useful now and then) so it's really dishonest for me to pretend to pray along with them. I respect others' beliefs, of course (even though I disagree with the political stances of most religions, I accept the dogma as being a personal choice), but I also take religion seriously enough that I don't feel comfortable pretending to participate in a ritual which has no spiritual significance for me. But I may have to this time. This isn't exactly the right time for me to make a point of telling everyone that no, I'm not Mormon, and not even Christian. And let's not get started on the other stuff.

There was a strange little thing that happened yesterday related to that, too. One of the family friends stopped by, and saw my car sitting out front. The one festooned with rainbow stickers and my spiffy new Kerry/Edwards sticker. She came in and chit chatted and said she couldn't figure whose car that would be, and then looked at me and Mike and said, "then I realized, oh, that must be Mike's husband's car." She went pink at her mistake. I didn't correct her, I just kind of smiled blithely, and squeezed Mike's hand. We've had a nice (and extremely needed) laugh about that since.

I'm just going to try to navigate this as best I can, and hope I don't have to field a lot of questions from the extended family about when we're going to have kids, or be expected to help out the womenfolk in the kitchen or whatever. I'm wearing pants to the service. I figure that's safer than showing off my hairy legs. And I'm *quite* glad I haven't been asked to sing. I don't like to sing at emotional events involving people I know. Worst performance conditions, ever.

Thanks so much for everyone's words yesterday. It's weird, but those little statements do matter, and help.