After my husband put in his papers, while he was coming to terms with his new existence, he came out to our friends and our families that he is atheist and it was taken with varying degrees of confusion and acceptance. We had lots and lots of very long and deep conversations during the months after, and I started asking questions. Lots and lots of questions. And he started giving me answers. Answers that, for the first time in my life, actually made sense! I would mull over and contemplate each of his answers to my questions and realized that he made sense. My husband started making more sense than anyone ever had to me. He started showing me web pages and videos he had found from other ex-mormons and atheists, and then I started looking on my own. I started finding my own answers. I had answers to questions I forgot I ever asked while growing up. I had answers and confirmations to doubts, fears, and concerns I had shoved to the back of my head! I started asking more and more questions and the world started making more sense.
Then the Huz shared a link to a blog post about heaven. Even though I was finding answers, I was still hesitant to do so as it went against my upbringing, but I clicked it and read the post. This women explained heaven in such a way that it hit home and I could no longer believe in it. It hit hard. I didn't realize how much of my thinking and beliefs revolved around my belief in heaven and an afterlife. This blog shook that to it's core. Basically she pointed out that for heaven to be real, we would have to lose who we are. We would not be able to be ourselves any more. She pointed out that we are promised that we will be surrounded by those we love, but that they will also be surrounded by those they love and so on. We would end up being surrounded by every human being that has ever existed. I hate crowds, even when they are full of people I know. Then, she pointed out, what about conflicts in our current lives? If you have a problem with someone close to you, are you still going to have that problem with them in heaven? Say, your father can't stand your husband, you'll want your husband by your side, but also your father right? In order for that to happen, they would both have to change who they are so that problem no longer exists and they could be happy which would also make you happy, cause we are all supposed to be happy in heaven right? Then she brought up hell. What if your child went to hell and you went to heaven? How could you be happy knowing your child is burning for eternity? You would either have to forget that child exists, forget they went to hell, or be incredibly miserable knowing they are suffering. The first two changes who you are, the last contradicts what heaven is supposed to be. Or you could shrug them off saying that they got what they deserved and then skip off to blissful happiness. Again, I think we would all have to change our core selves to be able to do that and be happy. This plagued my thoughts for months. In order for heaven to be real, I would have to change my core self, one way or another, to have the perfect, blissful promise be true.
I will never see my grandma again. Once I finally reconciled what that blog meant to me, this thought, more than any others, hit me hardest. I broke down and cried in the car in our driveway after work. I had a full on melt down. I grieved my grandma's death all over again. I then grieved other loved ones I've lost. I grieved for my little dog, for my cat from long ago. I cried. I hurt. And all the while, my husband held me and let me let it out. Heaven can't be real.
Once I came to my senses, I realized two things: I now had answers to all my questions about heaven, how old will I be there? What will my happiest moments in life be? Will I live those moments again? What will heaven be like? How will our pets fit in and will all of them be there? The answers, no longer matter. The second thing I realized is that my life and all the lives around me are now that much brighter, that much more important, and that much more special. My memories of those already lost are so much more precious to me as well. That is my heaven now, getting lost in remembering . My memories of my grandma, even the last one, will always bring me happiness. My grandma was awesome, awesome enough to pull herself out of a coma so she could say goodbye to her whole family. We held our reunion near the hospital and we all told her about it and what day, and it got through to her, she heard, even tho she was out cold. She was that strong. I miss her so much.
This life is the only life we have, and that makes it all the more amazing.
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