intheheart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
intheheart) wrote2014-01-01 07:39 pm
intheheart) wrote2014-01-01 07:39 pm
Faith
Title: Faith
Rating: PG-13
Summary: I am possibly the only homicide cop I know who still has faith in humanity.
Warnings: mentions of violent death, domestic violence, murder, description of a corpse.
Notes: On the Lint Roller, Kelly asked Felipe "What is the best thing someone has ever done for you?"
I am possibly the only homicide cop I know who still has faith in humanity.
Weird, right? But I can stand over a body in the mud, look at somebody who's been dead so long they're crawling with bugs, understand the mind of a killer and still think people are kind of okay. I can do that.
I see it like this. Some people are basically evil. Those are the kind of people who wind up being serial killers, or the guy who beats on his girlfriend or his kids. Maybe they walk out on their families, maybe they shoot their families; either way, they're evil. They don't care about anybody but themselves, they treat other people like objects.
Some people are basically good. Those are the kind of people who become the pope—well, some popes—or saints. The people who give everything they own to others and then keep giving, the people who lift other people up. Philanthropists, Peace Corps volunteers, people who spend their lives helping out. People who don't count the cost when somebody needs help.
Then there's the rest of us, and we're kind of in the middle. Sometimes we're good, sometimes we're bad. Sometimes we help out our fellow human being, sometimes we don't look and walk faster. Like everyone I've ever known has fallen into this category, minus my sister-in-law Paige, who I'm like ninety percent sure is a saint of some kind, and about a quarter of the guys we pick up for murder, who go the other way.
So, you know, good people, bad people, average people, it's normal, you know. I like to assume that people are going to behave well, though, because average people, I figure about eighty percent of the time they do behave well. At least, if people behave well to them, and I try to do that.
I've definitely gotten more than my fair share of people doing nice things for me. So much that I don't even know where to start to pick one. I mean... well, okay, my family? So many nice things. So many. Every day. Starting with the fact that they don't really give a fuck that I'm pan, or that I'm living with a man and a woman, or that the three of us have a son and don't really distinguish between parents. It's not simple acceptance, either, it's active acceptance, like, asking about my wife and my husband when they ask, shouting at people who are homophobic or polyphobic (is that a word?) or whatever. My family made sure I grew up in an environment where it was fine to be whatever the hell you wanted, so long as nobody got hurt.
If I teach my son nothing other than that, I will have succeeded as a father.
Where was I?
Oh, yeah. Friends. I've had friends pick me up off the ground when I hit the ground too hard to get up, walk me home and put me to bed when I'm drunk, call me out when I'm doing shitty things. I've had friends praise me when I'm doing good, pick up the phone at three am because I've had a bad breakup and can't get to sleep, keep me company while waiting for news. I have the best friends ever and they all know who they are, and they all know (I hope) that I love them.
I think that somebody said once that friends are the family you choose. That's the truth if I ever heard it.
Summer and Zack are—well. Okay. We don't always get along. It's hard enough making a two-person relationship work; add in another person and it gets even harder. I don't like them all the time. I'm sure there's times they really don't like me. But just to have the chance to dislike them, to argue about our stubborn child and our filthy kitchen and who was supposed to call the pool guys, do you have any idea what a miracle that is? To sit outside on a summer day and swat at mosquitos and watch my husband cannonball into the pool, watch Thomas clinging to his mother's hands while she teaches him to swim? I never thought I'd be with them, ever, and to be with them, to be married to them, to have our son and our house and our life...
I changed my mind. Them giving me a chance, that was the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. Beyond a doubt.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: I am possibly the only homicide cop I know who still has faith in humanity.
Warnings: mentions of violent death, domestic violence, murder, description of a corpse.
Notes: On the Lint Roller, Kelly asked Felipe "What is the best thing someone has ever done for you?"
I am possibly the only homicide cop I know who still has faith in humanity.
Weird, right? But I can stand over a body in the mud, look at somebody who's been dead so long they're crawling with bugs, understand the mind of a killer and still think people are kind of okay. I can do that.
I see it like this. Some people are basically evil. Those are the kind of people who wind up being serial killers, or the guy who beats on his girlfriend or his kids. Maybe they walk out on their families, maybe they shoot their families; either way, they're evil. They don't care about anybody but themselves, they treat other people like objects.
Some people are basically good. Those are the kind of people who become the pope—well, some popes—or saints. The people who give everything they own to others and then keep giving, the people who lift other people up. Philanthropists, Peace Corps volunteers, people who spend their lives helping out. People who don't count the cost when somebody needs help.
Then there's the rest of us, and we're kind of in the middle. Sometimes we're good, sometimes we're bad. Sometimes we help out our fellow human being, sometimes we don't look and walk faster. Like everyone I've ever known has fallen into this category, minus my sister-in-law Paige, who I'm like ninety percent sure is a saint of some kind, and about a quarter of the guys we pick up for murder, who go the other way.
So, you know, good people, bad people, average people, it's normal, you know. I like to assume that people are going to behave well, though, because average people, I figure about eighty percent of the time they do behave well. At least, if people behave well to them, and I try to do that.
I've definitely gotten more than my fair share of people doing nice things for me. So much that I don't even know where to start to pick one. I mean... well, okay, my family? So many nice things. So many. Every day. Starting with the fact that they don't really give a fuck that I'm pan, or that I'm living with a man and a woman, or that the three of us have a son and don't really distinguish between parents. It's not simple acceptance, either, it's active acceptance, like, asking about my wife and my husband when they ask, shouting at people who are homophobic or polyphobic (is that a word?) or whatever. My family made sure I grew up in an environment where it was fine to be whatever the hell you wanted, so long as nobody got hurt.
If I teach my son nothing other than that, I will have succeeded as a father.
Where was I?
Oh, yeah. Friends. I've had friends pick me up off the ground when I hit the ground too hard to get up, walk me home and put me to bed when I'm drunk, call me out when I'm doing shitty things. I've had friends praise me when I'm doing good, pick up the phone at three am because I've had a bad breakup and can't get to sleep, keep me company while waiting for news. I have the best friends ever and they all know who they are, and they all know (I hope) that I love them.
I think that somebody said once that friends are the family you choose. That's the truth if I ever heard it.
Summer and Zack are—well. Okay. We don't always get along. It's hard enough making a two-person relationship work; add in another person and it gets even harder. I don't like them all the time. I'm sure there's times they really don't like me. But just to have the chance to dislike them, to argue about our stubborn child and our filthy kitchen and who was supposed to call the pool guys, do you have any idea what a miracle that is? To sit outside on a summer day and swat at mosquitos and watch my husband cannonball into the pool, watch Thomas clinging to his mother's hands while she teaches him to swim? I never thought I'd be with them, ever, and to be with them, to be married to them, to have our son and our house and our life...
I changed my mind. Them giving me a chance, that was the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. Beyond a doubt.