Today has been rough... not a big surprise. Thankfully, there were a few good moments in there, too. Most of them came about when I started thinking about Heaven.
I'm not a religious person, never have been. Not an atheist, because I know I'm surely not smart enough to ever be positive that there is no God, but I do lean more towards a scientific view of life... why it is and how it all fits together. That makes it super hard for me to grieve, because I really don't -believe- in the afterlife... or at least, I didn't until this afternoon.
This is kind of how I look at it... we are organic material, mainly carbon, with electricity running through us. Somehow that manifests in consciousness, and that consciousness is a form of energy. Newton (a pretty smart fellow) figured out that energy can neither be created nor destroyed... thus, when we die, our energy is still out there.
Because we have a body, and that body ages, as do the things around us, there is time. Time is a process, as is aging, and we can only register time by the emergence of new things, or the degradation of the things around us, such as ourselves. When we die, we lose our body, our ability to gauge time. Energy is constant, everlasting, and without a way to monitor time, time effectively stands still.
If time stands still, then we, as moving, living energy, should be able to move around in it, through it, like we can now walk through and experience static, unchanging environments.
Right now, we can walk through a museum, through times that once were. After we die, we can walk through our own lives, a museum of US. And because we are pure energy, we can choose to re-experience any part of our lives. We can go back to our happiest moments whenever we want, however often we want.
Because time is stopped, and because we no longer have to fear death or the unknown, we will be able to go back to the times that were painful, depressing, or otherwise down-right awful for us. Fear and pain are caused by uncertainty, loss, physical suffering. We don't know if the pain will ever end. But since we are through dealing with time, we will know that the pain -will- stop, and our fears and uncertainties will disappear. We will be able to experience the pain of those moments, but the fear will be gone, and we will be able to use that pain to further appreciate all the beauty around us.
We can choose to be old or young. Sometimes I'll be 63, other times I'll decide I want to be 4 years old. We will be able to appreciate the beauty of our wrinkles and the amazement and wonder that goes along with being a little kid again.
Without time, we will be able to jump back and forth between the moments of our lives, grabbing people or pets and bringing them all together in one place where they can get to know each other. I can kind of imagine introducing a few of my friends to some of the others, seeing them not get along and snickering about it. Maybe they'll get into a food fight; that would be great!
And the best part of all, at least for me, will be when I gather all my animal friends around me, all at once. I can see it now: I'll be out by the red barn, the big red barn where all the kittens have played. It will be a sunny summer day, the sky so blue and deep that you feel like you can jump up and swim in it. I'll lift my face to the sky, take in a deep breath, smell the hay from the barn. Then I'll hear it.
A whinny off in the distance, along with the sound of hooves hitting the dirt. Here comes Silver and Foxy, Red, Hot Shot, Rome and Little Blue. Bumly is bringing up the rear. All of them shiny and sleek from all the fresh grass they can eat, their strong legs and arching necks glistening in the light. They come up to me, snort and look in my pockets for some apples or carrots, and I just happen to have and endless supply.
One of them, maybe little Foxy, will throw up her beautiful head. She's heard something. She canters off behind the barn and emerges in a second, a sleek little red dog named Trivet barking at her heels. Here comes Ted and Alex! Bear comes racing in, as do other puppies that I didn't get enough time to know. Ernie, the piglet who thought he was a dog, finds a warm patch of grass and lays down with a happy oink. Psycho Puppy comes bouncing in with her favorite tennis ball. It's all covered in dog slobber and she wants me to throw it, so I do.
I lean down and wipe my hands on the grass. I can hear my horses and dogs playing, and there's a whisper soft noise that I seem to remember, a soft padding that tugs something deep inside me.
I raise my eyes, and there stands Mr. Zen. He flings himself against my leg and I feel that warm, familiar weight pushing against me. I run my fingers through his fur, and as I'm doing so, another soft body brushes against me. Kitty Turbo gives me her soft white paws as she rolls over in the grass.
I sit down to play with them. As we play, more and more kitties come strolling in. Gremlin A and Gremlin B, T.C., Bucky, Tuffy, Knuckles, Tipper, Moof, Redcat. There's little Baby, the black stray that started all the madness after popping out the first litter of kittens. Rowser, the first cat I remember, is there. My heart recognized her even though my eyes did not, because she is young and I never saw her be anything but old and cranky. She bats at the tail of little Orange Julius as he struts by on his white paws. Kittens, dozens of them, chase each other in the grass. Mouse pounces on Bob, crazy Bob, and bites him on the tail. Goldie and Blondie simply lounge in the sun, complimenting each other on their beautiful tails.
There, in the green summer grass, I play with every cat I've ever known and loved. There are more than I can count. Some I knew for many years, others only stayed with me for a very short time. Mr. Zen watches on as I tickle the kittens that keep jumping on his tail. He reaches out and lays a big paw on one of their little furry heads, the kitten freezes for a second then spins around and starts chewing on his leg. Mr. Zen bats the kitten with a soft foot, the kitten goes rolling. None the worse for wear, the kitten bounds off to play with some of the others, and Mr. Zen and I exchange a knowing grin.
We play and laugh in the sunshine until we're warm and tired. The sun grows lower in the sky, but never goes all the way down.
I lay down in the warm grass, Mr. Zen curls up against me. I look around and see all my animal friends, each and every one that has been a part of my life. The horses race around in the fields, the dogs sniff the cats until the cats bonk them on the nose and they go find something else to sniff, Ernie the pig finds a whole box of cookies and has a snack, the cats play and nap and lick their nimble paws.
Time is standing still, and I, with my friends, am in Heaven.