Heaven...

There are no random acts...We are all connected...

You can no more separate one life from another

than you can separate a breeze from the wind...

 ~ Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven ~ 

What are your views on Heaven? 

When you die do you believe you will meet your loved ones in heaven? Will you know them and will they know you? 

I asked this question to everyone I met after I had discovered my Mother was deceased.  Most of whom I did not explain why I was asking, I just asked the question as if I was curious to hear their response.   From my Catholic education and from my own personal beliefs I believed that: YES, when I die I will meet my loved ones in heaven, I will know them just as I knew them on earth and they will know me just as they knew me on earth. 

Now there was someone whom I wanted to meet, I ached to meet her; I still ache to meet her. 

Will I know my own Mother?  Of course we met; she carried me in her womb for nine months. Dorothy and I shared the closest of all relationships, Mother and Child.  I heard her heartbeat, her laughter, her cries, her conversations.  But I never met her beyond that point.  I believe she held me, hugged me, kissed me and squeezed me tight while she cried while letting me go.  However, we never met again.  How would Dorothy recognize me?  I wonder if when she died if she asked Jesus “please let me see my Anna”.  Did Jesus and Dorothy stand on a cloud together while he pointed and said, “Look, there she is”.    I wonder if she looked down from heaven and was proud of the woman I had become.  Assuming Dorothy did ask Jesus to show me to her then she has an advantage these last 30 years.  She has seen me grow from the age of 19 until now 51.  I have seen many pictures of my Mother, but I have never seen her, held her, and touched her. 

I imagine that when I die, in God’s perfect timing, that I will step off of a cloud and there will be my Mother, standing there quietly.  We will stand there at a distance from one another, just looking at one another, soaking in each other with all of our senses.   Then my Mother will step forward and so will I and together we will walk until we embrace.  We will hug; I will kiss her on the cheek, pull back and study her face, she will study my face.  I will cry, she will cry.  Our reunion will be happier in heaven than any reunion we ever could have of imagined here on earth.  I will know Dorothy as my Mother and Dorothy will know me as her Anna.   All of the many questions I have now will no longer be of any importance to me. 

 I try to live daily to be the best person I can be, to be a Godly person, love everyone just as God has loved me.  Somehow knowing that I have a destination to meet not only Jesus but my Mother makes me strive even more to honor my Lord and Savior. 

Telling Michael....

As I mentioned in a previous post Mary was concerned about Michael’s reaction to discovering that his Mother kept such a huge secret and that he now had another sister.  Mary made arrangements to fly into STL on Thursday, October 25, 2012.  Mary had telephoned Michael several weeks prior to her visit to let him know she was going to come into town again.  Michael was concerned, very concerned that something was wrong with Mary, why else would she come into town when she was just here in the beginning of August.  Mary’s plane landed at Lambert at 11pm on 10/25, Michael was there to pick her up and drive her back to his home to spend the weekend and first couple days of the following week.  Mary had told me on one of our telephone conversations that she would wait to tell Michael the news until first thing Friday morning, after they all had a good night’s sleep.  Michael took several days off from work to spend time with Mary while she was in town.  I was on pins and needles as Mary told me that “if” Michael was not accepting of the news that she would have to postpone the “reunion”  for another time, another visit to STL.  I could barely stand hearing that, I really kicked up my prayers asking, begging, pleading with God to have their talk go smooth and to have Michael accept the news, accept me and have a desire to meet me.  I normally pray for God’s will, not this time, I told God what I wanted to become of this over and over, like a broken record.  I was relentless!  Looking back on this moment in time I see that my faith was weak over this journey in my life, I so wanted to learn more about my Mother, I so wanted a sister and a brother, I so wanted this to work out, I was so worried and anxious over the outcome not being in my favor that I forgot to keep the faith. 

Mary promised she would call me Friday afternoon and let me know how Michael handled the news and if positive we would all meet at a restaurant on Saturday afternoon to have our reunion.   Friday morning  October 26^th   while  I am at work my mobile phone rang, my caller-Id said it was Mary.  My heart stopped, why was she calling me so early in the day? Mary told me she would call me in the afternoon.  Immediately I grabbed the phone, answered it and bee lined for a private office to talk.  Mary was VERY cheerful and told me that when Michael picked her up at the airport that he was questioning her so much as to why she was in town, wanting to know what was wrong, insisting to know why and know now.  Mary managed to keep Michaels questions at bay in the car,  when they got inside of Michael’s home and got settled Mary took out the letter and pictures I had sent to her in August and showed the letter to Michael.  Michael was ecstatic to hear the news of having a new sister, he had so many questions that he and Mary stayed up all night talking of this “good and happy” news.  They also spoke of the sadness they saw their Mother go through and now understand what was wrong, wishing they would have known sooner so they could help her. Dorothy was grieving the loss of a child.  Upon hearing Mary tell me over the telephone that she and Michael looked forward to meeting me in person on Saturday I too was ecstatic and could barely focus the remainder of the day.