My Purgatory Hell

Prologue

"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time."

― Isaac Asimov

If I was asked a year ago what I believed in, I doubt I could answer that question. Even now, I'm not sure what I regard as true. Our world is so full of complex beliefs and issues with varying opinions that it is overwhelming to know what to trust. Plus, I'm young, and I still have more of life to explore and see. I'm still discovering who I am as a person and what I want to do with my life. My beliefs will firm themselves as I continue with my journey. Won't they?

"Hey, Maribell, don't you have to go to work?" my mother called up to me, snapping me out of my rabbit-hole way of thinking.

I glanced at the alarm clock perched on my wooden nightstand next to my queen-sized bed with a flower bedspread smoothed across the surface. My room was comforting and familiar to me. The one place I always liked to keep things in their designated spot.

I threw on my bright blue sneakers and made my path down narrow, uneven, carpet-covered stairs. "I'm on my way!" I hollered at my mom to let her know I was working on heading in to work. When I made it downstairs, I turned in the direction of my family's kitchen. Mom was standing at the kitchen table, methodically folding a basket of freshly cleaned laundry she must have washed earlier today.

"I love you, Mom! Bye!" I informed her as I passed her. I gave her a brief kiss on the cheek on my way towards the door. She patted me on my back in return. I walked towards the door leading to our garage.

"I love you, too! Drive safe!" she called after me. "Always!" I responded back. I opened the door to our garage and walked down a pair of older, wooden stairs. The porch creaked with different pitches as my weight shifted on each step.

Religion was one of those beliefs I've struggled with. My mother was born and raised a Lutheran. She wasn't very old when my mother's parents brought her into a house of God before a priest--before him--and washed away her sins with holy water. Though she doesn't mention church much, she would pull out her photo books from on occasion that bare witness to her in a fancy-looking gown. The photos may have been dark and grainy--nothing compared to our photos now--but I could still she her baby eyes as she looked into an older camera that took her picture. I'm not sure how, but my mother was a very photogenic person, even from day one. It is spectacular seeing her baptism photos. In these rare times of reminiscing, she would mention how my grandparents would pack her and her siblings up and take them to house of Lord every Sunday. The thought brought a smile to my lips.

"Off to work?" my father questioned me from under the ancient truck that he was working on. Dad had his vehicle on jacks and his upper body was under the truck while his waist and lower extremities stretched out and away from the truck. He rolled out from under his vehicle, got to his feet in a slow and methodical manner, and wiped his hands on an oily red rag that lay on the back of his green, and somewhat rusting, truck.

"Yep," I responded to my father's inquiry as I made my way to my aging Chevrolet Cavalier. The vehicle wasn't as old as my father's truck, but both were covered in the same quantity of rust. When I opened the door to my Chevy, the door protested with a squeak.

"I'll need to fix that," my father muttered under his breath to himself as I closed the noisy door behind me. While his words weren't meant for my ears, I still managed to catch his comment as my father wasn't soft spoken.