it's therapeutic somehow

When I was about seven, my family lived in Los Gatos, California. It never snowed. Until one day it did. It snowed about two inches, all of which had melted by early in the afternoon. That night, my mother gathered us all together, as she did every night, to pray. Each of us was required to thank God for something. Before we began my father told us that Mr. M., the father of my babysitter, had died. He had been out shoveling the snow and had slipped and hit his head on the driveway.

But now he is in a better place, added my mother, because he is in heaven and he gets to be near to God. When the prayer circle reached me, I said, thank you, God, that Mr. M died. My horrified parents asked me how I could say such a thing. You said Mr. M is in heaven, so I thanked God for putting Mr. M in a better place, I told them. Don’t ever wish for someone to be dead.

Years later, at my father’s wake, the family (now transplanted to Virginia, where it also snows only rarely), was sitting around our living room telling stories about my father. For some reason, I brought up the story of Mr. M. My mother again got a look of horror on her face. He didn’t die shoveling snow, she said, he rented a hotel room in Los Gatos and Shot himself.