Tell Me There Really Is A Heaven, Please…

At 46, I just laid to rest yet another loved one and chipped away one more piece of my heart. I have to ask, there is a heaven, correct? I have to believe there is.

As a little girl, when someone talked about heaven, I always pictured angels on clouds looking down on earth and bridges made of white fluffiness that sat behind the largest set of majestic golden doors I could imagine, ornate and adorned with cherubs. 

As I’ve gotten older, I began to hope heaven was a place where everything was just better than here. If I had to describe it, it would be… a place without crime, pain, disease, mental illness, no ladders to climb, where no one is better than anyone else and where everyone’s family because you’re home now and door is always open. 

Memes, quotes, philosophers, and poets have told us for centuries in one form or another to live our lives to the fullest, as if there may not be a tomorrow and that nothing is guaranteed. I love every one of those and most bring a tear to my eyes but if there were no tomorrow, what is on the other side then when we take our last breath?

Since childhood, I have been told there is a heaven and a hell. You do good things, great things, be kind and treat people with respect… you will be welcomed to heaven. You do evil things, horrendous things, heinous and unspeakable things, and even the most unforgivable things… you will be escorted to hell. Regardless of my Catholic upbringing, there are movies, tv shows, books, and cartoons that discuss heaven like it’s just another stop on the highway. Most times, many give God a face, whether it’s Morgan Freeman or George Burns. 

Geez, with every fiber of my being, there has to be a heaven. Come on for real! There has to be truth in all the stories, the myths, and the conspiracy theories. Maybe it sounds a little bit childish, but please just let it be real.

As an adult and a mother now, I imagine it as this incredible place where all is forgiven, where second chances are no longer needed, where hugs and kisses are given constantly, where the sunsets are priceless and everything you loved in your life on earth is there in some form to give you comfort until you are made whole again when you and all your loved ones are brought together.

Whether you are buried in a cemetery or you’re cremated and placed in an urn on a mantle, there has to be more after our hearts stop beating.

It’s been almost 15 years since we lost Timothy. Since then, he has remained that 18-year-old young man with a heart of gold in my mind since the day he died. I wonder though when Grandpa met him at the doors of heaven recently, was Timothy still frozen in time as an 18-year-old who loved the wind in his face, whether it was on land or water? Or had he grown into a man of 33 with a dash of gray in his hair, laugh lines, but those same hazel blue green eyes to help Grandpa know exactly who he was immediately as Timothy’s arms wrapped around his neck? 

Are there bars where everyone gathers to tell old stories about their lives and memories their loved ones in heaven may have missed? Are there endless wooden decks with comfy lounge chairs overlooking breathtaking lakes where people do nothing but hang out to catch up, unfazed by time? Do they have continuous sunrise and sunset cruises just to marvel at the beauty of it all? Are there welcome meetings for newcomers? Are there directories for people to find one another in case they didn’t get the memo of a loved one’s or an old friend’s arrival? Are there libraries to help people keep up with everything happening on earth? Or maybe not, because there is not anything horrible or sad in heaven. Right?

After living an amazing life, heaven has to be the incredible place we go next when we leave this world. I have to keep that belief alive. The one that 5-year-old me had who saw heaven as this beautiful place, untouchable by bad, built on the foundation of good and where the grass is truly greener. 

At 43, I lost my mother to dementia. Then I found solace in believing that she was once again with my father, who we had lost 19 years earlier. Just the thought of my father standing at those majestic golden doors with a single rose and his million dollar smile, waiting for his bride, gave me peace of mind when I knew she would never see her grandsons graduate, her grandchildren get married or the other parts of life that I never wanted both my parents to miss with my own children. 

Throughout my life, I’ve experienced real loss. Not just the kind where you find your friends were never real, or when you are forced to start over for reasons outside of your control. Instead, the kind of loss when your heart feels like it’s truly beating outside of your body without your control; breathing sometimes feels too difficult to do without holding someone’s hand; and for survival purposes, you feel like life can only move minute by minute in order to complete a day. Sometimes, to move forward from that type of deep loss, you can only heal with the belief that one day, you will be together in heaven with one’s you’ve lost when it is your time to come home. Together, in a place where the pain is gone, the suffering is gone, the cancer is gone, and nothing is left but love, friendship, memories, and everything that is beautiful. 

There has to be a heaven, right?