When I was 4 my grandmother moved in with my family because she was suffering from
early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. She was beginning to forget things but to me that
was nothing really important since my four-year-old mind could barely remember what
day it was more or less recall where my shoes were located last. At first I thought it was
cool that my grandma was coming to live with us, until she tried to preach to me her
versions of Christianity.
My grandmother was an extra zealous and devote Appalachian Christian, meaning that
according to her the Devil was everywhere. She told me stories of the Devil and his
minions and how children as old as I could go to Hell.
"Never walk on a dead man's grave." she used to remind me, "A giant crowbar from Hell
will come up out of the ground and pull you down with him, the Devil... I swear..."
Now only being four-years-old and thinking that all adults told the truth, I believed every
word of what she was saying to be an unperjured claim. I couldn't even look at a
graveyard until I accepted the fact that my grandmother was crazy and her ramblings were
just utterances from a dying mind. This process took several years.
And since then, I have become an extra zealous, devote atheist with a slight fetish for
crowbars.