You Just Have To Believe

When I was growing up, I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with death. My extended family was fairly young and healthy, and it would be after my teenage years before I would really know what the grieving part of losing someone you loved would even mean.

My PaPa Josh died when I was seven years old, at a very young age, of brain cancer on Christmas Day and all I can really remember about that happening was that people were sad, people were whispering and I was scared.

I was scared because even at that early stage I think I believed that somehow when people died, they still saw you, might even still be “with you” and I’m still not sure how I came up with that theory so young, but I did.

The next person to pass would be his wife, my Sara MaMa, when I was twenty years old. By then the feeling of being scared was gone, and sadness, regret and grief took its place.

I can remember being at work right after it happened and discussing her death, and death in general, with a wise older woman with whom I worked. At some point, I was saying that I would see her again, I would see them “all” again one day and my co-worker said yes, you will, but the bible says you will not know them as your grandmother or your grandfather, but you will be happy and you will see them again.

That conversation I can hear today as clearly as it was like a blow to my stomach way back then. In that one minute, my thought process of how it was all supposed to end, what we are all here waiting for, looking forward to, didn’t even exist.

I didn’t just want to be happy and pain free, I wanted to be reunited with my family, as I knew them, not as strangers, or just people who meant nothing to me. That didn’t make me happy at all, and that was what the real idea of heaven was supposed to be to me – the ultimate happiness. What you work so hard for all of your life – your reward for being a good human being.

The number of books I have read in my lifetime might astound a lot of people. I don’t read as often now as I once did but I’m trying to re-learn to close the laptop and pick-up a book instead.

I’m also not a book reviewer, but I recently read and finished a book that lifted my spirits like nothing else has for a long time. The afterlife we’re all working towards, and the idea of what heaven must truly be, was described in such a way, that I have hope again that I will reunite with my people one day and live happily ever after.

                                                                            

The Whole Town's Talking written by Fannie Flagg – read it. It might not change your life or your mind about how the end really works, but it sure will give you hope that it turns out just like it should.