I don’t believe that when someone dies, that they go to heaven or hell for that matter. I believe that you simply "go to sleep" for lack of a better expression. I believe that you are just resting and waiting for Jesus’ return back to Earth, whenever that will be - and that you will see your loved one again.

This is simply my thoughts only. You need not agree with them

Since this thread is still in full flower I’d like to say a few things about the comments. It is one thing to tell us what you believe or not believe; it is another to proselytize your particular religion as though somehow some of us are ignorant sinners wandering into the abyss. We are a mixed group:Atheists, Agnostics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, et al. We are also, for the most part, women and men of a certain age so that our belief systems are pretty well cemented. We don’t need sermons nor is this the place to give them.

P.S. To Frank: My pies, though perhaps sky inspired, always taste best when made with earthly ingredients and then  my heavenly body buddy and I indulge; ain’t nothin like the real thing, baby! 

I believe in Heaven.

But not in the manner most of our society is taught to believe in. Heaven is not a place beyond the clouds where everyone who is saved by the Grace of God goes to live out eternal life. Heaven is a place where spirits reside. But for me heaven is everywhere, it isn’t in the sky.

My mother passed when I was a little girl. throughout my life I have had a feeling as if someone was watching over me….guiding me. It wasn’t until I reached my teens that I could label this feeling. I had Angels watching over me. From the time when I was 9 and stuck a fork in an electrical socket. I was burned badly but lived. And I remember something telling me "no" but Belinda being Belinda, I did it any way.

To this very day my Angels will say do this or don’t do that, and when I listen, every single time without exception, what unfolds is always for the best. Some may call it a sixth sense, but I say Angels. 

Heaven is all around us, filled with spirits and Angels, just as Hell is. But that is just my interpretation.

Sheila,

In the early 60’s, my dad’s brother vanished without a trace. He methodically showed up at different homes one day, left his children with those he felt would best take care of them, and was gone, never heard from again. Everybody thought he was dead, but I refused to believe it.I did not have a sense that he was beyond this world. 

In the late 90’s i gathered addresses for everybody I could in the country that had his name, and wrote a letter and sent the letter to all the addresses in hopes one of them, would be him. I got one letter back from Michigan, telling me he wished he could have been my uncle, but wasn’t. 

2 1/2 years ago, in March my aunt died who was his oldest sister. The next week, her husband (my uncle) recieved a notice from an attorney in Michigan, that my uncle died three days after she did in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His only contact, was to be after his death. He lived his life in seclusion in a mobile home, worked for some years but did not make friends, or invite anyone to his home.

A couple months ago, whether those that believe in communicating after this life believe or not, I recieved a visit from my grandmother and him, her son. He told me about the letter verbatim, and said what he meant was that he was sorry he could not have been the uncle I had looked for, but he did recieve the letter, and thanked me for telling him how much everybody did care. Though he felt it was too late, to change what he had chosen for his existence. I also found out how badly my rough old grandmother had treated him as a child, but yet they stood together beyond this world, without bitterness or regret. NO-thing is as it seems in this world. 

To me, heaven is free thinking and manifesting through thought, less the ego interupting. Destination no, a reality beyond this world, yes. 

Linda 

CCD - Confraternity of Christian Doctrine

Roman Catholic Sunday School that used to be called Catechism 

I love the honesty of this piece. Thank you for sharing that personal story about your innermost thoughts and experiences.  I find it comforting to know that we all have a sincere desire to know the truth about Heaven.  I personally have always believed in Heaven because I was taught of it’s existance as a muslim child. We called it Paradise.  I hadn’t experinced death of a loved one until my college years.  By then I had already experienced a spiritual transformation and been converted.  At the time of my grandmother’s death, in her dying moments, I was awakened in the middle of the night. I had been restless. I sat up in my bed wide-eyed and alert, staring at the clock.  I didn’t know why.  I hadn’t known my grandmother was dying until I received a call hours later.  I hadn’t even known she was in the hospital!  But my spirit knew.  I’ve had enough spiritual experiences to know there is something else out there.  Someone else. 

Just this past weekend  I learned from my spiritual mentors that when we die, we stay dead until we rise again.  Wow oh Wow, I thought.  So my grandparents are not at G-d’s side in this moment, like you and many of us heard. They sleep.  It’s not very comforting unless we believe they "rise" again at a later time.  But I have faith. A mustard seed of it, but belief nonetheless.  I think you have it between the lines of your writing as well.  A little bit is all we need.

P.S  And if it doesn’t exist as we know it, we won’t know the difference anyway.  "All is vanity," as King Solomon wrote.  :-D

Doctrine has said that when we leave this earth we will face whatever our own ideas of the here-after are.  Whether met by Saint Peter @ the Pearly Gates, forty virgins, a fork-tongued demi-god or John Lennon, the after-life is equally as individual and determined as life itself.  Some would say.  Others would say, even emphatically so, that there is no after, that our flesh expires and returns to the earth, feeds the worms, end of story.  Others STILL, would say the two former suppositions are bologna, that after we leave this body we will ascend to an alternate form of existence; a red-breasted robin or a dolphin perhaps.  Some would say this and believe it, even if it isn’t the same truth for you and for whatever reason, is a truth you are not entirely willing to accept.  So how then is it all possible?  All these different, co-existing personal beliefs, and further, understandings of an existence or possible non-existence that is, by in large, completely intangible??   

Sheila Nevins’ The Day Grandma Left Heaven For Dead speaks to it all.  The wanting to believe in the happy ending but knowing in all the realities of this lifetime, how a concept like Heaven could end up heaped with the likes of the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny; the contradictions of admittance into such a paradise lest it truly exist, and beyond existing; the stark possibility that one bright day it may all simply stop; no further contemplation of it all, just nothing forevermore. 

Thank you, Sheila for this entirely thought-provoking and beautiful piece.   

I’m not so sure the concept of Heaven has ended up in a heap with the tooth fairy and Easter Bunny.  Many believe similar to what Sheila mentioned, "heaven was different."  Just my 2 cents.  But I’ll think about that some more.  Thanks z z*

I want to mention that I appreciate the word selection in the opening.  It’s quite poetic. 

"When I was a little girl and Santa’s beard fell off to reveal Uncle Seymour, I dropped my belief in Santa. I took Santa Seymour’s gifts with sadness, because Mr. Claus was for me no more. Heaven was different."

a.Beard fell: dropped belief.   b. Santa Seymour. 

          After the death of my sister Susan from ovarian cancer, I went through a dark period where I no longer believed in God, and certainly not in heaven. But I wanted my belief back, so I focused on what I believed as a child, and how, before her death, Susan asked me to be her spiritual support because she knew I believed in miracles.

            The day I made my First Holy Communion, before the ceremony, Sister John Mary gave each of us children a small plastic box, and inside the box were our first rosary beads. I could barely contain my excitement when I opened the box and spilled the round white beads into the palm of my hand. But a moment later I was horror struck when I saw that my rosary was broken—the crucifix was separated from the beads.

            I worried over those beads and could think of nothing else as Sister led us out of the classroom. The weather was cold for May, overcast and chilly. I shivered as we crossed the yard into the church.

            We had been instructed ahead of time that when Sister gave the signal, we were to hold our rosaries above our heads for Father Patrick’s blessing. When the time came, I closed my eyes and held the rosary box high, praying a quick Hail Mary that when I got home from church my father could reattach the crucifix to the beads.

            When the ceremony ended, I opened the plastic box, and when those beads spilled into the palm of my hand the crucifix was attached; my rosary had been made whole. To this day, I believe that when Father Patrick blessed my rosary, a miracle occurred.

            When I begin losing hope I think back to that miracle and others like it that I’ve witnessed in my life, and I hold on, sometimes for dear life. I do believe there is something else out there for us—that we truly are spiritual beings having human experiences. I feel Susan around me. Sometimes she even leaves me pennies in the darndest places, kind of like a kick in the pants to help me remember, and to know, that there’s a kind of heaven out there for when we leave this place behind.