:(

Today was rather depressing.
I had a memorial service for my cousin. Since he was cremated, they just had a service for him talking about him and things important to him. For the last couple of days, rather than starting to feel better about things, I'm starting to feel worse. And today at the service, when they mentioned my name in the speech, I completely broke down hysterically. I started remembering how close I used to be to my cousin and how I was the ONLY person in his life that had faith in him, and then I lost it, and just became like everyone else. I remembered how I used to talk to him on the phone every single day, and he'd tell me how he was stopping everything and doing better. Really he was just lying to me, but I believed him always. After I found out he was lying, and then after he stole my cousins wallet at my Mom's 40th surprise party, I started to sort of resent him. I stopped calling him and when I'd call to talk to my aunt and he'd answer I'd hang up. I was so disappointed in him and in the last 2 years I've hardly spoken to him at all. I resented him for everything. Doing drugs, lying, stealing, torturing my Aunt. But now that I've spent the last few days devoting all of my time to thinking about it, I don't think he was such a bad person. I tried to put it in words the other day to Billy, but I couldn't. But I want to try again. I used to consider my cousin a terrible person because he was selfish and didn't care about how he was hurting everyone. That he would steal from my aunt and lie. But what makes someone a terrible person? How do you judge? I didn't change my mind on how I feel about him just because he died and he can't redeem himself anymore. I just don't think Steven was a terrible person. I think a terrible person is someone like Charles Manson, who kills people and is disgusting, and enjoys it. Someone who gets JOY out of hurting people is a terrible person. Steven didn't get joy out of hurting anyone. Mainly he hurt himself but he hurt his family. Although he did, it was unintentional. He was addicted to drugs, so he did anything to get them. And he did everything. He was a prescription drug abuser and he was into hardcore drugs like heroin and crack. He made bad decisions, but he wasn't a terrible person. And now and forever, I can completely regret not telling him, that despite everything he did, I loved him. So now I can deal with that on my own.