Please accept my apology for what may appear to be me bragging about myself. That aspect of this piece is not intentional.
After I retired from the USMC, I had some money set aside to use to invest in a business if I decided to go that route. As it turned out that is exactly what I did. I first embarked on a job with a commercial airline company but found that that environment was too sleazy for me to stomach. So I took a job with a bookkeeping company. That company offered me a franchise and I accepted it (bought in). I was doing very well. My investment was paying off so to speak. Then as it happens one of my clients offered me a 25% interest in a computer component wholesale company. I took the offer. I was all set in Houston. A house, a company making money, my military retirement, and income that allowed me to save a good deal every month.
Then my father started having medical issues. He had bouts with Lewy Bodies Dementia and Parkinsons. He had to stop working altogether. My mom could not take care of him. I had to make a decision. Do I just send as much money as I could to her every month or do I take an active role? I took an active role. I moved to the Dallas area in my Mom's house. I bought out the equity in that house and made the payments for everything. This gave my mother the money to finance my father's medical treatments. The part that Medicare and health insurance would not pay for. My father became increasingly worse. I had to take him to specialists all over the place. I learned what I had to do and how to do it for him. I stayed with him 24/7 working online. I listened to him hallucinate endlessly. I took him to the bathroom and cleaned him up. I gave him baths. I brushed his teeth. I cut his hair and nails. I dressed him. I fed him. I did everything he needed for over 10 years until he became so ill that he had to go to a facility for constant professional care. Even then, I visited him every single day for hours. At the same time, I had to work and provide for my mom. I listened to her frustrations, her fears, her anger.
I knew what I was giving up. I was giving up "me." I didn't bitch about it. I didn't feel sorry for myself. I have never let my mom know or feel what I have personally given up for her. That just wouldn't be right.
My father passed almost 2 years now. I sold the house, but instead of sending my mom to a rest home. I brought her with me.
I tell you all this, not to get praise, but to illustrate what being there for someone really is. It isn't prayer vigils or reading words out of a bible. Those are all superficial and don't do a damn thing for anybody. Being there for someone is a personal sacrifice without reward. Now when my Mom passes there will not be any inheritance, no reward to look forward to. In fact, I will have to pay the better part of the funeral expenses which I will gladly do.
I am not unique. Thousands of people do and have done what I do and have done every day and they do it a damn sight better than I.
But comfort doesn't come from a religion or any myth. Being there isn't some superficial jester that is really just a show. It isn't platitudes read from a book of fiction. It's effort, action, hard work. It is making a decision that you know will cost you your future, that will end all of you plans, hopes, and dreams. It is purposely changing your life, not because you have to but because other people need you to do so. It's not an obligation or a sense of responsibility, it's care. Real care. The kind of care that is automatic and without remuneration. All I get from it is that comfort in knowing I did the very best I could for my Mom and my Stepdad.
I see people like AG claim that you can't find comfort without jesus, and I know first hand that he is dead wrong. I don't know anyone that gets real comfort in believing in god or jesus. I see people claim that they do, but I sure don't see it. It really upsets me when people of religion tell people in need to seek god and you will find comfort. It is a bald-faced lie. The really bad thing about it is that they KNOW it is a lie. No one REALLY believes in a god. They HOPE that there is a god but they don't actually completely believe in a god. It is really ironic because as atheists we know what wrestling with the knowledge that there is no god really is. We know that we are ostracized by society even persecuted just for accepting reality and choosing to live our lives in that reality. Yet, all these believers suspect that the god thing is all bullshit. They struggle with it constantly no matter how devout they seem. Now I have seen people help others and they do it on a religious basis, but that is just organization. Some of them, even many make personal sacrifices and ARE there for others, but it isn't because of any god. It's called HUMANITY. And humanity never needs a god, jesus, or a bible to exist. Humanity is present in every single person. It is the very nature of being human to aid others in their time of need. There's nothing "christian" about it.