We ordered two pizzas, one of which the place messed up, so we gave the delivery guy hell, and the whole thing ended up being free. My friends are insane, but I love them—you wouldn’t believe the stuff they did to this guy to convince him the pizzas should be free, but it was all in good fun, for us at least. Then we watched a movie on TV that was somehow listed in the “classics” category, but it was so bad that it was actually hilarious to make fun of it. It was about a sled.
I was sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night not knowing what dark matter was, but it turned out I could. I slept better than usual, in fact. I think it’s better to not know certain things. It gives the world an extra bit of mystery, which is important to us as human beings.
No One Goes to Heaven to See Dan Fogelberg
Tim, nine years old, leaned next to his grandmother as she lay in her hospital bed. He gently kissed her face around the tubes in her nose.
“I love you, Nana,” said Tim. “I promise I’ll visit you in heaven.”
The next day, Tim’s grandmother died.
Sixty-six years after that, Tim died.
The first thing Tim did when he got to heaven was look for his wife.
He was so anxious and excited to find her that he couldn’t focus on anything else—not the fact that he had died, not the fact that he was in heaven, and certainly not his grandmother.
“Is Lynn here?” he asked everyone he met. “Yes,” they said, but he kept asking. “Is Lynn here?” “Yes,” they laughed, “you’ll see her in like two seconds!”
And there she was, standing beside a park bench in a spring dress, looking at the same time the way she looked when he had known her last, at the hour of her death just under a year ago, and the way she looked at her very most beautiful, the day he married her, when she was twenty-two and he was twenty-five.
It was a far deeper and sharper moment of first love than the first first moment of first love, because now, not only was he falling in love, but he was falling in love with someone he loved; and while the first time, he also believed he’d be with her forever, he was too young to consider what forever meant.
Now here he was, truly, on the first day of forever.
He kissed her for an eternity, which was fine, because heaven had eternities to burn. Then he kissed her for another.
“It wouldn’t have been heaven without you.”
He took her hand in his, and they strolled out of the park together.
“Oh, and you gotta remind me,” said Tim as they walked. “One of these days I have to visit my grandma. Remind me, okay?”
“Of course!” said Lynn. “I would love to meet her.”
But first, they looked up their friends, the ones they had shared for the main length of their life together. They brought to each house a bottle of wine that never emptied, and they visited everyone for hours, laughing late into the night, reminiscing and gossiping about who had died and who hadn’t. Then they’d wake up early the next morning, make coffee and French toast, and talk about the friends they had visited and whether or not heaven had changed them.
Next they went to see Tim’s parents, who were doing very well and were very happy to see both of them.
“Have you visited Nana yet?” asked his parents.
Not yet, said Tim, but soon.
Next, they visited Lynn’s mother.
“You know your father’s here,” Lynn’s mother told Lynn. Lynn was surprised to hear this. “It would be the right thing to visit him.”
Tim had never met Lynn’s father, but he had heard all about their relationship. Her father abandoned her family when she was thirteen and only saw her once more, when he showed up unannounced at her high school graduation and tried to reconcile, ruining the day for her. She had retaliated by rebuffing him publicly and rudely. She did not want to see him at all, but she could tell it was the right thing to do, and heaven was the kind of place that made you want to do the right thing.
“We’ll go together,” said Tim. “It’ll be fine.”
Lynn’s father opened the door to his oversized condominium with a huge grin. Of course he would have a condominium in heaven.
“Remember at your high school graduation?” he said. “When you told me to go to hell?”
He smiled like he had been looking forward to saying that line for a long time.
“What a jerk,” she said after they left. “Why did they let him in?”
“He must have changed,” said Tim.
“And then changed back?”
“Maybe,” said Tim. “Who knows how things work here?”
“Well, maybe this is better, because I get to feel mercy, or something. Or close that chapter. Or whatever. I did it. You know?”
“That’s a good attitude,” said Tim. “And it was the right thing to do. Now you can enjoy heaven with a clear conscience.”
The next day, Tim called Nana.
“Hello?”
“Nana?”
“Who’s this?”
“Nana! It’s Tim!”
“Tim who?”
“Tim Donahue!”
“Eliza’s husband? Oh.” She sounded unhappy. “Hi.”
“No, Tim Junior. Eliza’s son. Timmy! Your grandson!”
“Timmy! Oh, goodness—Timmy, you died? You’re just a little boy!”
“No, Nana, I’m all grown up! I’m in my seventies now. Was.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I still pictured you as a little boy! How did everything wind up?”