Heaven Can Wait

Every now and then, our writers group has a swap and share night.  You bring in a piece or a few pages of a larger project and pass it around to others for suggestions and comments. Last November, in this blog, I posted a short musing about heaven.  I wanted to develop it a little further so I used the first few sentences and elaborated from there.  I received some helpful suggestions from the group.

            I like to think of heaven as a network of little communities – much like it is here on Earth only without the wars, hunger, violence, smog, calories and uncomfortable shoes.  As you pass through the Pearly Gates, God knows exactly just where to direct you.  That’s why He’s God. 

            Look around this lofty locale.  You are now reunited, face to face with people that you love, here in the afterlife: friends and relatives, ancestors, heroes and anyone who had meaning to you in your mortal existence.  And, you’ll see your favorite pets again, too. 

            “Hi, Skippy!  Hi, Teryaki!  Barney, fetch!  Wow! Look at that, guys!  A big field of bright yellow tennis balls, television remote controls, sofa cushions and favorite sneakers -- for your chewing enjoyment.  Milkbones as far as the eye can see.  All your favorite things!” 

            Sometimes, in heaven, you may need to run over to another community for something, say, in the rare instance that they run out of calorie-free kettle chips at your local Heaven Eleven, and, lo and behold, you have a surprise encounter with someone that you knew briefly down here on solid ground.  

            “Hey! When’d you get here?” 

            “A couple of years ago.”

            “Really?  Nobody told me! How?”

            “Bus accident… I was texting when crossing Main Street.”  (FYI: They do not allow cell phones in heaven. They also do not allow email, FaceBook or reality television shows.)

            “Ooh. Sorry,” you say to the poor soul who met with such a messy, untimely demise.  “You look good, though -- considering.”

            But, the typical reasons for entry into the hereafter are, for most of us, usually the big ones:  heart disease, cancer, stroke, old age.  I especially hate cancer.

            Living the majority of my life as Jersey girl, I guess I’ll end up in the New Jersey counterpart of heaven.  Sounds kind of like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Jersey and heaven together in the same sentence.   But, in Jersey heaven, there are no traffic jams, no property taxes, the beaches are not crowded and it’s a balmy 75 degrees all the time.  However, the pizza will remain the same.

            When I get to heaven, I will be with my dad again.  I will remember his humor; I will see his crooked smile and his one raised eyebrow.  I will laugh at the perfected headshake and the comical eye roll.  He did the eye roll a lot when I was a teenager.  I will let him know that I felt his presence and his wise guidance in every trying situation that I experienced here on earth.  

            The best part of heaven will include a special conversation, one that I waited a lifetime to have.
           At some point in the future, my son, who has autism, will join me, and, after decades fraught with unexplained struggles here on earth, best guesses and hopeless frustration, we will finally talk to each other.  True communication, using real words.  He will explain why, as a little boy, he meticulously lined up his toys in intricate mazes and why it sometimes took him 30 minutes to prepare to walk through a doorway.  He’ll tell me what he was looking for as he lifted his plate before each meal to inspect the bottom.  He will explain the reason for one million mysterious, unexpected, heart-wrenching tantrums and why certain songs made him dance and laugh.  But, mostly he will tell me that he knew I did the best that I could every single day, and that he loved me.

            As I think of all the people that I knew, now in heaven, looking down on us, laughing atop a puffy cloud, it just makes me feel happy.

            Heaven, where guilt-free chocolate flows eternal and all the Elvis sightings are real.