Sometimes I think about her, or rather, about what she left behind. I remember that day perfectly, the way my parents sat me down on our beige, worn down couch. My mom hates that couch. It’s old, teeming with memories, good and bad.

I remember how quiet they were. Yet, I figured it was only a minimal disturbance.

“She died...” starts my mother, quietly.

Within seconds, everything changed. My brother started crying. His twin was not crying, the only one out of three of us that seemed stoic. I remember wondering why he wasn’t crying. Did he not love her? Was he in shock? I remember how I was perched on the end of that horrible couch, bawling. I remember how my parents were unable to comfort us, for they were suffering emotionally themselves. I remember locking the door of my room and curling up on my bed, thinking that I was going to die because I couldn’t stop gasping for air. And I remember wishing I was dead, begging God to let me go, instead of her, as if her death could be reversed. I remember trying so hard to make a bargain. I remember it all. That was the day I renounced God.

In 2005, my aunt died of breast cancer. She was in India at the time, visiting her parents. She was not in The Unted States. She was not with us.

I felt guilty. As she became sicker, I became more distant. As her skin turned from a healthy tan to a sickly, gray-tinted taupe and her long brown hair became replaced with a short wig, I had said about ten words to her at numerous family reunions. Reminiscing, yes, I felt horrible about her death and what she left behind, but more than anything in the world, I felt guilty.

Eight years had passed. She left behind a son, a two year old toddler at the time, who has the same brown hair as his mother. Her son, now ten years old, looks just like her, as he did eight years ago. We still have the same, beige couch. My mom still hates it. It’s funny how things don’t change much.

I believe that there is no God. I believe that is ridiculous to accept that a higher being, for which we have no proof exists, can control certain aspects of life, such as death. I was angry for a long time after my aunt’s death, angry that this so-called God robbed a child of his mother, angry that he took my aunt away from me forever. It could be argued that he didn’t aid in her death, that cancer was the prime murderer. But if there is a God, that fought with her against this disease, trying to keep her alive, he simply did not try hard enough. No, no one but cancer killed my aunt, and no one helped her fight the battle. God is not a killer, for he does not exist.