A year ago today, my Aunt Betty died. Twenty-nine years ago today, over nine hundred people died in Jonestown, Guyana.

Last October, I wrote a review of a film about Jonestown and was contacted the next day by a Jonestown survivor who stumbled across my blog entry and appreciated my words, which were uncharacteristically sympathetic to the ideals of People’s Temple. I didn’t tell you this at the time because there was something so oddly intimate about communicating with someone who escaped death by poison and gunshots by fleeing alone into a dark jungle. Of course, she communicates with people every day and we don’t see the bank tellers and grocery clerks swooning in the aisles, but I guess I was in awe, not only of her miraculous survival, but of the convictions that brought her to Jonestown in the first place. The people of People’s Temple were trying so hard to do something good for the world. They left everything and everyone they had ever known to make a go of it—only to be swindled, betrayed, and conditioned by fear and paranoia into a horrible and painful death.

The only thing my convictions have led to lately is switching to fluorescent light bulbs.

The woman told me that, every year on this anniversary, the few Jonestown survivors and the families of the dead meet and memorialize those who killed themselves. Does this make them feel better, or do they beat themselves up over what they could have done differently?

I could have done things differently with Aunt Betty. I could have called and visited her more. I could have gotten her a brooch for her last Christmas alive--as was our tradition--instead of the soap I picked up at the last moment because I forgot all about her gift. Oh well. I have slightly lower electricity bills now, Aunt Betty. Aren’t you proud?