Balloons in Heaven

Lately Aiden has been talking a lot about Great Grandpa. Questions come up like, "Where's Great Grandpa? He died?" and "How come Great Grandpa died?" come up often.

My kids have been exposed to a lot of death at a very young age. This, I think has been a positive thing. It has offered me many teaching opportunities about how we should think about death. Of course, having a hospice nurse as a mom has helped tremendously. Even I think about death as a much more positive thing now.

After all, isn't that the means to an end? What are we striving for? Heaven. How do we get there? Death. Kids at this age have an unshakable faith and they think about it perfectly. So perfectly in fact that it scares me sometimes. "I want to go to Heaven too Mama. I want to be with Jesus right now. I want to see Great Grandma and Great Grandpa."

Last night as Mackenzie and I were making pizza, the boys were drawing pictures at the bar. Aiden, ever the talker, started in. "Mama I'm going to draw Great Grandpa."

"Okay Aiden," I said as I wondered how this might turn out.

A few minutes later he shouted, "Look Mama! It's Great Grandpa! Look!"

What was on the page at that point was the figure on the far right. Notice. He's in a rectangular box, the last way Aiden saw him. "Wow Aiden! You're right. That looks just like Great Grandpa."

He went back to busily drawing. After many more look and sees he had filled the page. The art, although not perfect is pretty good for a three year old little guy. The meaning however might teach many adults a lesson.

The two figures at the top left are me and Aiden. Aiden is the one holding the balloon. The larger, square figure on the left toward the middle of the page is, "Great Grandpa's Mama", which means his wife who passed away almost two years ago. She's standing with an unnamed figure. Great Grandpa is surrounded by balloons.

What more appropriate subject matter for the month of October with All Saints Day and All Souls Day so close? Shouldn't we all see death as a happy end? Shouldn't we celebrate souls as they enter into Heaven?

I hope when I die, sometime very, very far from now, the saints in Heaven will be there to celebrate my arrival into Heaven. And, I hope they have balloons.