Heaven

I found this piece I wrote about 10 years ago – long before I had a blog.  It’s all still true, but I’d add my son and others to the list of those who are there.  Thought I’d share…

There is a heaven. I decided this in my heart a long time ago. I tried to rationalize it as something our brains make up to help us get through the tough times in life or that the idea is planted there by stories and myths. I tried to think like those of the Jewish faith that this is all there is. When our life is over, we are gone. I tried to fit that into my head and hold onto the thought. But, in my heart, I have found that my truth is that there is a heaven. Of course, I won’t know until I die if I am right, but that is beside the point. What makes sense to me now is that there is a heaven.

Do I live my life trying to get to heaven? I don’t set it as a goal or a prize. My life on earth is not worth much if I don’t make the most of it, if I don’t use the moments I have to see the beauty of people and earth I have around me here. It’s like when I travel – I try to see everything I can because I don’t know if I will ever get this way again. I don’t want to be a good person because I am afraid of what will happen if I’m not. I want to be the kind of person that I can live with for eternity, because in the scheme of things, we will always be with ourselves.

Heaven has been on my mind. My grandson was telling me what he knew about heaven – that his Sunday School teacher told him that you could run and run and not run out of breath. And that God and Jesus would be there. And he pictured his granddaddy there, running and running and not out of breath. It made me smile because I doubt that is what his granddaddy would be doing. I would imagine in his heaven he is hunting and fishing and playing golf and walking around the fields and watching the stars in the night sky. I would imagine he is cooking for his family and cheering on his teams and having a beer with his buddies and coming home to tell me his stories and hold me in his arms. I can only imagine.

My heaven? My heaven.

My heaven will look like earth. There will be mountains, hills and plains, oceans, lakes, rivers and streams. There will be water near me where I can swim and dive underneath and sit beside it and walk on its shores and smell it and hear it and feel it in the air.

There will be days and nights so I can see sunrises and sunsets and feel the sun and watch the stars and moon.

There will be changing seasons so I can watch the leaves change colors, the flowers grow, the snow falling. I will be able to feel the heat of the sun and the chill of the air.

There will be rain with thunder and lightning.

The people I love will be there. I will have my husband, my father, my grandparents, and all my friends who have gone before me. There will be people to talk to and there will be laughter and conversation.

I don’t know how we will look. I leave that detail up to heaven. I guess it doesn’t matter if we are young or old or all the same age. I suspect we will recognize each other. I don’t care what we will be wearing. In my heaven we will be comfortable.

We will watch fireworks and go to school carnivals.

There will be big dinners and the men will cook outdoors and we will all bring something and everyone will be talking around the table.

There will be music and there will be dancing.

There will be times of quiet reflection.

In my heaven, we will sit before fires when it is cold and under the stars when it is warm.

We will blow bubbles and sway in swings and hammocks.

We will hold each other close and know that we won’t have to say goodbye.

There will be sex, heavenly sex, with the one I love.

I will see the earth and watch those I love and know that they will be ok. I will visit them when they need me to let them know that I am never far away and they will feel me near and know that I love them.
What will not be in my heaven?

Worry. Disease. Hate. Meanness. Cruelty. War.
I have known life on earth. My heaven would be to choose what I get to take with me forever.

Because I can’t imagine that there are things more wonderful than what I have known here.

Maybe that will be the surprise.