First, to share yet another gem from the lips of my Number One Valentine Of All Time - Sasha Grace:
"You know what I think? I think that everybody goes to heaven and that all this hell stuff can be easily explained." This is what Sasha, my 13 year old daughter, shared with me the other day while she was doing her homework that she didn't want to do. I had just told her that I thought we probably just created our own "hells" for ourselves.
"I think everyone goes to Heaven. You know, in the end of it all. We all end up there together, I'm sure of it." Really...go on.
"Well, I think that what we live here, on earth, is where we make our choices, like, to choose which way we want to go. On the way to heaven." You mean the path?
"Yeah, like, there are more than just two or three. There's lots. And they have kind of tributaries, like what I just colored on the map for geography. Or if you're on the wrong tributary, you can, like choose to dig a path to the another one. Or back up and start again from somewhere else. It's more work, you know, than just taking the big river to the end, like see, the delta? But you can at least get to it if you really want to." And when is this all happening? In purgatory?
"What's purgatory?" We're Jewish.
From what I understand, purgatory is something that some Christians believe is a place that you go after you die, before you go to heaven or hell. I think you get to wait around and learn lessons or something like that.
"Oh, no. Well, kind of. But this purgatory is really Earth, where we are now. We're supposed to be learning all the lessons now, not just watching them from someplace after we die." Jeez. What did I give birth to? Gandhi? Okay, go on.
"What do you mean, go on? That's pretty much it. We are born at the beginning of this river, the source...oooooo [big smile]. And when we die we go back to the ocean, or heaven. And on the way we take the rivers, some of which are already made and some of which were dug by other people, some of which we dig ourselves." Hence, maybe digging your own grave?
"Mom! Sometimes they are the easy way and sometimes they are the hard way. But we can still change our minds any time we want, even if we're on a hard way. And, of course, you get to see more stuff if you travel down and up all the tributaries and it's kind of beautiful, even if you end up at a dead end. But you can turn around if you want, see?" She's showing me her homework map.
"Or you can just die. Hmmm...like then maybe you have to come back here again and start over until you get to the ocean." Like a board game, huh?
"MOM! I'm not done, stop getting all...makey-uppy." Okay, that's fair.
"Anyway, you mess around here until you find the ocean. But everybody always finds the ocean, that's the way it is." So what is hell?
"Hell is when you decide not to try to get out of your wrong decisions or, like, refuse to stop heading down the wrong tributary, even when it's getting more...narrow or mucky or something. Like [someone we know and care about]. They are in hell. But it's okay, even though it's hard for us to see, because they will eventually get to heaven because everybody does. Because it's water. It all finally goes to the end down here." Like living hell. Then the ocean is then heaven"
"Yes, yes, yes, go ahead and reword everything! Jeez, Mom!"
Second, one of my new favorite quotes:
"There is no remedy for love but to love more." Henry David Thoreau
Which, among its many other uses, is my answer to "How can you mend a broken heart?" And to, "What is the meaning of life?"
Today I am grateful I love.
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