Heaven

I was having the nightmare again: dead and buried under 6 feet of dark earth, blind and deaf and dumb. The world would go on without me. The world would forget me. I never was.

I woke up, my heartbeat staccato under my skin. I was too old to crawl into bed with my mother, so I lay there and tried to think of something else. It was no use. A world without me. No more John.

Next morning at breakfast she noticed my quietness and the dark circles under my eyes.

“The dream?” she put her hand under my chin. I nodded.

“You know that when you die you go to Heaven?” she smiled. I nodded but I knew no such thing. What was Heaven anyway? Angels and God? Like a church service that never finishes?

She must have noticed my lack of connection because she shook her head. “Time for you to have a chat with Oma.”

Oma is nearly 90 years old and she lives in the Westbury Home, a big white building with brown gables near Mossy Lake. She was sitting in her big recliner reading a big black Bible when I came knocking at her door. She beckoned me in, and I sat on the couch.

“Your mother called me.” I nodded. “You’re afraid that when you die you stop existing?” I nodded again.

“Let me tell you about Heaven.”

And this is what she told me.

It is an ocean, blood-warm with breakers that throw you up in a golden sky and waters that catch you as you come tumbling down.  It is a river that carries you as you float on it, singing a song of joy. And there are no words to that song because words are too weak for it. Music springs out of your mouth as though bidden; it is like breathing, you simply must!

It is a tree hung with fruit and everyone of Heaven’s children are climbing it to pick the fruit that delights them. Every fruit is perfectly ripe and ready to burst as you bite.

The smells are perfume indeed. Not heavy cloying smells, but rather the delicate sharpness of plumeria,  the soft musk of cantaloupes, the sweetness of honey suckle and the odor of Douglas fir baking in the sun. It is torn basil leaves on cherry tomatoes toasted on a crusty slice of bread. The air is full of your most beloved smells, and epicurean delights and a banqueting table. It is Christmas morning with hot chocolate cooking in the big blue pot.

Heaven seems boring to you? How could the great Creator make something dull? Have you forgotten the sight of hundreds of flashing fish on a reef under crystal waters? Remember the colours of leaves in the Midwest after the first October frost, all red and orange and yellow! Boring? God could not make something boring to save his life!

Heaven is the new life-all we have known before are mere hints and intimations, like a glorious dream that quickly fades and is lost to the night. Every yearning you have ever felt is fully realized there, my dear, foolish Jantje.