My Job in Heaven

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself…”  Matthew 6: 34

That scripture is from the Sermon on the Mount.  A very fine blueprint for living: Matthew 5-7.

 

There are many things I miss from my pre-cancer life.  One of the biggest ones is working.  I miss putting on my boots and futzing around the back yard.  I miss washing all the dishes then cleaning the sink to as bright a white as I can get.  I miss using my body.  I miss bicycling. And swimming.  And hiking. And walking.

So as half my brain has given up, “the morrow,”  I decided to fill up that empty spot with dreams of heaven.  One of the first things I hit upon when thinking about heaven was the idea of work.  Work makes me happy.  I love the physical exhaustion of a good hard day in the garden.  Why wouldn’t work be part of heaven?  I bet it is.  And if there is here is what my job would be.

I haven’t come up with a good title; although “Official Greeter” does work.  Here’s how I imagine it.  You know when you go to the airport, you stare at the big, “Departure” and “Arrival” signs?  I hear it’s that way when you are in surgery as well, although the signs say things like, “In Surgery,” and “Recovery.”

Every morning I’ll wake up and look at the arrival and departure times.  Before I explain all of it, I must tell you about one of my core beliefs.  It’s a belief that comes from my Mormon upbringing, and one I have always felt deep in my heart as true.  I believe that all spirits are together in a world called the pre-existence.  This is where we live as spirits before we are born. One of the biggest compliments you can give another Mormon is, “We must have known each other in the pre-existence.”

I also believe that the after life and the pre-existence are in the same place.  My son is crazy for my Grandpa Warren.  Grandpa died in 1983.  Mac’s feelings for him are very real.  I do think they knew each other.  So there’s where the departure board kicks in: souls heading to Earth for their turn to practice free-will and to learn to make good choices.  Maybe one morning the board will tell me that my first grandchild is about to be born.  I’ll hop on my bike and ride there to wish my grandchild godspeed and tell her again how excellent her mom, (Quinn) is.

The arrivals are the same idea; only waiting for someone to pass on.  I fully expect for my Grandpa Warren to be waiting there for me, to take me to the rest of my family.  On arrival days I may hike to the arrival point. The person arriving may be a close friend or family member; or someone I don’t even know but needs some extra cheering on.

I think the job fits me.  I’ll get to use my body to go places; under my own power! And I really am a cheerleader at heart; how excellent to cheer people on after running the marathon of their lives. And to see spirits make the leap into the unknown, ready to experience life on Earth.

 

Crickets and Memory

Crickets.  On a warm August night when I call the dog in, a single cricket, singing unseen in the backyard.

My son, Mac, the priest in SpongeBob pajamas explains his idea of heaven:

“If you think of your favorite memory, maybe you are a kid, maybe a grown-up, that is what your heaven will be.  You’ll have the same body from that time, and your brain will be happy for googolplex years.”

My head is full of memories. I can’t remember the plot of a movie I watched last month, but I remember a croquet game in my Grandma’s back yard when I was 4, who came to my 6th birthday party, and what I wore on the first day of 7th grade.  My memories used to play constantly through my brain.  Sometime in my late 20’s, I learned to pause the constant Super 8 stream.  After my conversation with Mac, I pressed play, scrolling through to find that one childhood memory that would be my heaven.  I stopped at the sound of crickets; not just one, but a sun-scorched field in Western Oregon full of them.

When I was 5, my Dad and I used to walk a half a mile from our house to what I called, “The Fields”.  Past the new housing developement my Dad refered to as, “ticky tack”, then out to the expanse.  A few years later, my elementary school, Bohemia, would be built of the acres closest to the road.

The fields smell of dry grass and wild mint.  So much mint it takes on a skunky smell that attaches itself to my clothes.  Crickets jump around our feet as we walk to a small creek.  A swampy creek filled with water skippers, tadpoles and frogs.  Twice we caught tadpoles and brought them home.  I watched them swim in a white plastic wash tub; so anxious to see their sleek tails turn in to legs.  That miracle never happened on the back deck.  My Dad was never sure what to feed them; both times they died.

Dad and I ran, played and talked as we walked through the fields.  Sometimes I rode on his shoulders.  It was quiet.  Off in the distance, evergreen trees were cloaked in the setting summer sun.  When I see this memory, I am struck by my lack of self-consciousness.  I haven’t been introduced to the bullying of school.  I’m not embarrassed of my boy clothes and my socks covered in burrs.  I am myself; unadulterated by the world.  No one to tease me for dressing like a boy, or for having red hair and freckles.

Our walk through the fields always ends too soon.   When I get home I’ll be hustled into the tub and off to bed. I know in a few days, after dinner, Dad will say, “Julie, let’s go to the fields.”

 A warm August night in 1973, crickets chirping, unaware of the world, just me and my Dad… that is my heaven memory.