Where’s your heaven?
Really. I’m serious. Where is your heaven? I want to know.
I want to know what Utopia looks like for you. Because I can’t quite figure mine out. I’m scared of dying. I’m afraid to face whatever lies just past those gates. Always have been. Maybe I always will be. I haven’t received any memos from the great beyond. Have you?
What does it look like? Are there colors? Can we see those who’ve left us? Our family? Our friends? Our pets? Will Sheba, my childhood dog, be there? Will she remember me? Will she look like she did the day she died? Full of maggots, panting and looking upon my 12 year old self for sanctuary? Right before me and my father took her to be euthanized? Will she forgive us? Will Clyde and Irving and Sammy and my Grandmother’s smile when they see me? Will grudges be held like anchors on a ship at sea?
What about Ed and Judy? Who will I pick to visit with first? Is patience a gift we wear like a band around our wrists telling the world we’re 21?
What does ultimate consciousness feel like? Who gets to pick the weather? Or what’s for dinner? Or who gets forgiven? I never wanted to actually TOUCH the stars, just pretend I could.
As if I could be some Hercules in the the face of those who feared everything.
But I’m the fearful one. I do not know where my Heaven is.
I’m scared. I’m afraid I won’t have enough tickets to get in…
Annette said:
on June 9, 2006 at 5:25 pm
My heaven is right here, because I’m not a believer in anything beyond this (although that would be a grand cosmic joke, wouldn’t it, to find that there is, or find myself coming back again). Everyone is scared of dying, to some extent or another, but if I were being honest with myself I would say I’m more scared of my mom dying than scared of death myself. Might be because of my personal brush with the distinct possibility that I could have died from the cancer that invaded my body. But I didn’t, and I don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about my own death as much as I do the deaths of those around me whom I love – and even then, the thought only bubbles up from time to time. It’s all part of the greater cycle, and me worrying myself to death (so to speak) over it does no one any good.