Growing up I was taught that there was a Heaven and a Hell. Good people went to Heaven and bad people went to Hell. However, being a Catholic, good and bad were pretty rigorously divided and therefore you had to be very careful in life not to screw up and thereby damn yourself to eternal Hell. It’s a lot of stress for a kid. I mean, suppose you stole penny candy from the grocery store and didn’t confess it? Well, that was breaking one of God’s Big Ten and you went directly to Hell. Luckily, however, that wouldn’t be the end of it for you. You see, what you did on Earth could be excised in the Afterlife if enough people prayed for you. Petitioned God, if you will, to have mercy on you soul. And as a result, Catholics around the world pray for the living and the dead. I, for instance, continue to pray for the souls of all my grandparents and uncles regardless that I’m pretty sure they are already with God (even the one that committed suicide). But you can never be too careful, so there I am, down on my knees, interceding for people who weren’t exactly bad people but who knows what slight sins stained their soul, right? I mean, except God. Which is why I pray for them. It’s a circle.
I have a lot of questions about my faith regarding the Afterlife. I’m not supposed to. I’m supposed to just believe that whatever the Church says about it is true. But I’m a considerate, sentient being who lives in a modern society that lays great store in science and that which can be proven (the Church does, too, by the way. They have a bunch of scientists that go around debunking miracles. Ironic for a religion based on a virgin birth and the bodily ascension of Jesus. But I digress). But here’s the rub: I’m afraid to believe that there’s nothing after this life and therefore, by default, I believe that there is an Afterlife. Whether there is a Heaven and Hell remains to be seen. I’ll wait until I reach the end of the tunnel for that one, thank you. And because I believe there is an Afterlife, I believe that my grandparents and uncles are still about. And at my beck and call.
It’s gotta be tough being dead. I mean, other than the obvious like not being alive. Especially if you knew me when you were among the breathing. Because I talk to the dead all the time. I talk to them in the shower, late at night when I can’t sleep, when I’m driving in the car, while I’m on the treadmill. I talk to them out loud, in my mind, and in my prayers. These poor souls are not at rest, they are answering my summons. I talk to them more now than when they were alive. Probably because they can’t answer back. And the person who gets the most of my chatter? My grandpa Dillon. Poor Grandpa.
My grandfather has been dead for over ten years now, but he’s as much part of my life as my mother. Three-thousand miles away or another plane of existence doesn’t matter to me. I think about who I think about and could care less if they are In my Verizion wireless package. The other day, I was washing my hands in the bathroom sink and wondered if my grandfather could see me. Not going to the bathroom, but whether he was aware that I was now in California and doing okay. You see, my grandfather died when I wasn’t doing okay. I was an angry young woman who felt cheated in life and to punish everyone decided to waste my youth as the Dunkin’ Donuts girl. This perturbed my grandfather a great deal. It did not help that his other twenty-something granddaughter was also floating through life cutting hair. Grandpa was under the firm belief that we were vastly capable girls who were just wasting time. That at the very least we should get jobs with the government. He suggested the post office. If you were going to waste time, you may as well have a secure paycheck, great insurance, a nice pension, and get some exercise while you’re at it. But really, what twenty-year old is thinking about a pension? So, I scoffed. Then he died. And I felt awful. I sometimes think that I became a cop to atone for this sin.
Now, however, I’m not the Dunkin’ Donuts girl. And though I don’t have a secure job with great insurance (the pension is doing alright, though), I think he would be marvelously pleased with me. And as for that cousin, well, she’s getting her Ph.D. in microbiology and currently works for – you got it – the government. (Suck up.) So, I hope there is an Afterlife. Not only a place where the dead can be forgiven their sins, but a place where we the living can be forgiven for ours by them. If my Church got anything right, I pray it is this.
Below is a song from the movie Yentl. I have it on CD (yeah, I own a Streisand CD. What of it?). And every time I hear it, I think about my grandpa. I hope he see me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwCPAo5e_F8
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