grieving in advance

i’ve just come home from (what is likely) my last-ever vacation with my eldest sister. she isn’t sick or dying, which i am thankful for, of course. but, she is planning to enter seclusion at a convent on the other side of the world instead – something i understand even less than death. when i first started questioning my faith in the 8th grade, i confided in her. she ended up telling my mom, who then told me that i should kill myself and that she would buy the rope for me1. like any other 13-year-old, i apologized, wrote ‘i wish my mom would die’ over and over in my diary and then threw myself into religion with desperation. i wanted to be loved. i wanted to be accepted. i wanted to be good again. i became an avid youth-group participant, held a position in my high-school organization, and even played missionary for a week in one of the provinces here in the philippines. the children there nicknamed me ‘ate magic sarap’2 and then i never saw or heard from them again. i have no idea…