My mother grew up a Catholic farm girl in San Juan del Rio, Durango and remained Catholic when she moved to Matamoros. I wish i had asked her what she thought about converting to dad's religion when we moved to Texas and what happened to her in that religion that made her abandon it. I don't remember much about it, i was about 15 yrs old then, i was mostly wondering if that fuzz on my lip would ever turn into something.
It was17 years later, it might have been during the same conversation we had about death, that i asked her if she knew what a cult was and i told her that it was the opinion of some people that dad's religion was on the verge of being a cult. This did not faze her, and she let me know that she was not convinced of that. I told her that any religion that tries to control who you marry and what you read is highly suspicious.
Mom stopped going to church with dad, but she never abandoned God. I kept going to the services with dad, just the two of us, nearly a year, i guess. At 16 yrs old, i think that leaving that church and abandoning dad to his theology was the first challenge, of any importance, that i would have to deal with, to become the person i set out to be. I knew, at that age, that i did not want to be the person that my father was trying to mold; it's one thing to have taught me his trade, i'm grateful for that, it's quite another to force me to adopt his beliefs without question. When it was clear to me that i was expected to end my education upon my high school graduation, (and even that was frowned upon by dad) and was strongly discouraged from reading anything that was not published by his church, i knew that i was expected not to question.
I'm not sure what could have caused me to have such an epiphany (if i may use that term) at that moment in time, but i knew then that i did not want to be closed minded. The questions were starting to form, and one led to another; what i read in the bible did not make any sense, but my conscience did not let me be critical of the book inspired by God, not until that first step was taken. It took a long time, by teenager standards i suppose, because i could not find a way out; i was not a natural rebel like my older sister; i could not confront my father because
confronting him was tantamount to facing God Almighty to question His logic. In the end, out of desperation, i turned to my mother and pleaded my case; i hope that the reason that she decided to help me was that she knew it was not Satan at work, like my father would reason, and not just another opportunity for her to make dad's life miserable. She told me one saturday: just don't come out of your room in the morning until your father leaves; and she told him that i would no longer be joining him, that i had my reasons. He yelled at her that she would be sorry for aiding and abetting Satan's latest project!
Yes, dad predicted my moral downfall, but i don't know if he ever got any satisfaction out of that prediction. Mom mentioned the incident one time, not long before she died, it made her laugh. It was a couple of years after i quit going to church that i had my first real beer, not just a stolen sip, and it was another couple of years before i started drinking with any regularity, that didn't last long. Tried pot the first time when i was 18, it was ok, but i think i'm giddy anyway. I brought books home from school and read them, i was in plays, i went to UIL play competition one year; i was a geek, for heaven's sake! My mother knew that, i don't think dad did.
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