Chapter 8

Journal entry October 11^th.

Relationship between culture and religion:

Both claim to deal with human nature.

Both of them deal with beauty, tragedy, and the redemptive power of suffering.

Both of them are completely full of shit.

What could have saved Hannah? No book in any library could hav emade her live once she’d mad eup her mind not to. I don’t know if any priest from any faith could have made her want life instead of slipping into death. She couldn’t save herself, and she wouldn’t tell anyone else she needed saving. No book, no movie, no music album could have helped, so what’s the fucking use of any of it?

At a funeral, you want a dreary rain to fall, or at least a dull brooding overcast sky. But this is Southern California, where even the weather wants a face lift, so the day Hannah was buried was warm and sunny, with little fluffy clouds skipping across the deep blue sky. It was a relief to finally walk into the church, where at least it had the decency to be dimly lit. There were candles burning up at the front of the church, and the crucifix hang starkly in the air.

The mourners straggelled in, and a silence fell over the crowd. Not a comfortable silence, nor a holy silence like on Sundays, but an uneasy silence, like the phone that doesn’t ring after a fight with an old friend. It was a relief when the priests entered with a rustle of linen; I was surprised to see them dressed in bright purple. I’d expected black, or maybe just a plain cassock.

I don’t remember much about the actual service, it was pretty much just a blur. We finally settled in for the sermon; I think I was very anxious to hear what Father Timothy would say; no-one had known what to say about Hannah’s death, would he be able to say anything, or would it be more hot air and smoke?

“It’s very hard to know what to say at times like this. It’s sad enough when a young person dies in an accident or from disease; it’s almost impossible to comprehend it when a young person chooses to take their own life.

“There are always a lot of questions at a time like this. Why did she want to die? What could we have done? Did he go to Hell? Why go on living, if life is like this?

“These are all human questions, that anybody asks at the time of death. And while they do have answers, answers are not really what the person grieving wants. Usually they just need to grieve, and questions help with that.

“It is, perhaps, only the final question that really needs to be answered. It is the question that the young person who has taken her life asked, and was unable to answer, and it is the question that those who know her will ask. If this wonderful person, who was so precious to us, can’t find a reason to live, how do we then live?

“Sometimes a simple answer will work. Why live? Because life is a gift, and should not be thrown back in the face of the one who gave it. Because as dark as things may seem at any time, they almost always get better. Because there are sunsets to be watched, oceans to be swam in, and flowers to be picked.

He paused, and adjusted his glasses. “But these are not the sort of answers that will satisfy most people who are mourning. We need to know how to live with pain, and whether it’s ever worthwhile.

“Just so you know,” he leaned forward confidentially, “Life is worth living, suffering can be redemptive and it is all worthwhile. But it very often doesn’t seem so.

“To many of you, it will seem like a worn-out cliché to affirm that life is worth living, because it is a gift from God. But great thinkers from Plato forward have insisted that this is in fact the case. Even if you don’t like a gift, you don’t smash it in the face of the giver. Well, maybe God is just a tyrant, and enjoys watching us suffer, why not throw it back at him? Even if it were so, and there’s no reason to assume it, you would get back at such a tyrant by being happy, and overcoming, not by giving up and giving in.

“Hannah’s death has shocked all of us. She was a gentle girl, with a sweet nature, and it seemed to us that she had everything to live for. We trust that she has ended up in the arms of a loving God, a God who took her in and healed all the pain. But we cannot give up, and we must not come to believe, as she did, that the battle is futile. As long as we live, we can be tempted to despair. But we must never give in, never give ground, never surrender.

“Now, let us sing hymn 546, Nearer My God to Thee.” He turned and walked back to the altar, and continued the service.

The grass was very green in the cemetery; the upturned earth was dark brown and damp, clinging together in clumps. Some effort had been made to cover the raw dirt with a green carpet, but someone else had rolled the carpet up, and it lay to one side. Somehow, that was comforting. I think the fake green covering the harsh sod would have made me vomit just then.

A few words were said over the grave, then Hannah’s coffin was lowered in. The other people from the service slowly wandered off to their waiting cars, but I and few others stayed behind. I didn’t want to leave her there, grave open to the sky; I had to make sure she’d be covered up properly, tucked into her earthen bed.

James was standing with me, and Erin and Travis stood on the other side of the grave. Ryan was sitting on the grass nearby, and Angie was walking around, looking at the nearby gravestones. The late fall fires had made the sky smoky, and with the ruddy light of the setting sun, the western horizon seemed to be angrily smoldering into ashes.

The gravediggers—I’m sure there’s a more PC term, like interment technicians, but I don’t give a damn—came by just before dusk. They seemed a bit unnerved that so many had stayed behind, but we persuaded them that we really did want to stay until the grave was covered. They brought out a small earth moving machine from a nearby shed, and with three quick passes over the site, had all the earth back in place. They had even saved the sod, and tamped it into place. In less than forty minutes, it looked as if Hannah had been buried for a week.

C’est la Los Angeles. It’s death, hide it, cover it, make it pretty and green again, move on, she’s gone, there’s other fish in the sea.

Her death didn’t even make the front page of the local paper.