Are you there?

Are you there, God? It’s me again. I think this might be my last time. I’m pretty sick of coming to you and nothing ever happening. My friends all make fun of me when I tell them I still think you’re real. Even my parents make fun of me. Everyone thinks Christians are losers, but I’ve stood up for you, even when you haven’t stood up for me. I still choose to believe, and if those movies about fairies hold any weight, you need believers to exist. Well, I believe and could really use your help this time. I know last time I said it was really important for me to take this girl to prom, but this time is different. And I know the time before that I told you I really wanted to get that video game, so I could finally look cool in front of those guys from school, but this isn’t like that. No, this time is different. This time it’s for Mom. The doctor told her she’s pretty sick. She might be okay, they said, if she does the treatment. It’s really important to me that the treatment goes well, and it’d be really great if you could help Mom have the strength to get through it. We both really need everything to end up okay. You see, I just really can’t do this without her. I had to go live with my dad for a week, and it was miserable. His place smells like a dead rat. And his cooking is horrible. He burnt the mac and cheese he tried to make me. I don’t even know how you do that. Mom laughed and asked why I hadn’t made it, so I had to tell her that Dad had insisted. So you see, I really need Mom so I don’t have to live with him.

Hey again. I know I said last time was the last time, but the doctor apparently told Mom that she had a pretty good chance of surviving, so it seemed like you decided to listen this time. So I just wanted to say thanks.

Hey God. Mom’s chemo has been going alright. She’s just been really sick recently and has been having a hard time keeping food down. But she still puts on a smile. Sometimes I hear her crying at night in the living room, and when I sneak out of my room to see her, I join. She used to yell at me for doing stuff like that, but now she just lets me hold her. We lay like that until we both fall asleep. I think she’s scared. I guess I would be, too. I try not to talk about how much it scares me. Instead I try to tell her it’s going to be alright. I even tell her about when I pray to you, and how I think you’re really listening this time and that everything is going to be okay after all. The first couple times we talked about it, I could tell it made her really uncomfortable. She’d kind of laugh it off a little, but now she seems a lot more receptive to it. Even says thank you now and then when she thinks I’m asleep.

Hey there. I’m really grateful for all that you’ve done but not today. No, today was pretty miserable. These kids at my school were making jokes about fucking my mom again. I’d made the mistake of talking about the last party they’d all been invited to and how funny it was that one of the guys had shit his pants. So, they started talking about how hot they think she is and stuff. I told them to stop because it was gross, but they kept going. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I snapped and screamed at them to stop. And then I really embarrassed myself because I started crying. The tears just kept coming down my face, and the whole class stopped and turned to stare at me. The teacher told me to leave for the nurse’s office, but before I got out the door, I heard someone whisper that my mom was going to die. Through my tears, I yelled that she wasn’t going to die. She was going to make it. She was going to be fine. That God was making sure of it. The teacher pushed me through the door before anyone else could say anything. But I could hear them laughing. I knew they were laughing at me. They let me go home after that, and my mom made me feel really weird by giving me more attention than usual. She even made my favorite: lasagna. We watched a movie together, too. It was really nice. In the end, I was pretty glad I got to go home, but I’m really nervous about going to school tomorrow. I really hope they don’t all start laughing at me or talking about my mom. So I could really use your guidance for if that happens.

Hey. It’s been a while. My mom’s been doing a lot worse. I can barely look at her most of the time. Dad doesn’t make me go over to his place anymore. Now he just stays here in the guest bedroom. I think he’s scared, too. I think it really hit him when she answered the door one time a few weeks ago, and he got a really good look of her face. Oh, and she hadn’t bothered with a wig that day, so he finally saw how much hair she had really lost. She’s been walking around the house like a zombie as if she’s already dead. Sometimes I’m not sure if she’s really seeing me. I don’t even think she notices when Dad’s here. They don’t really fight like they used to.

Hey. That was some real shit you pulled on me. I’d been really giving you the benefit of the doubt on all of those bad days. Just kind of figured the bad days were necessary to balance out the really, really good day that was coming. The day that she’d get better and everything would be okay. So I lived through all of those bad days pretty alright. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d had faith. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Have faith? Turns out everyone was right to laugh at me. You are a joke. Because if you were real she would have gotten better. If you were real, she’d still be alive. If you were real, you wouldn’t think of sending a kid to his Mom’s funeral before he’s even graduated high school. You certainly wouldn’t make me move in with my loser father. But I guess we have our answer. I’d say go to hell, but apparently it doesn’t exist.