"And yet the question persists: What will heaven be like?
"I have my own ideas about my arrival there, anyway – ideas firmly grounded in earthly things, however, so they probably aren’t even remotely true.
"Still, it’s all I have to work with. And so my fantasy begins with suddenly finding myself walking down a dirt road on a perfect summer day, surrounded by flowering shrubs and big old trees and zillions of flowers. The birds are singing and the butterflies are flitting and there are bunnies and foxes and horses all over the place.
"As I stroll along, I suddenly notice a cat coming towards me – a white cat, it seems. As we get closer to each other, I notice that the cat has gray paws and ears and amazing blue eyes. And then in the blink of an eye I realize that it’s my precious Siamese Sam, who died in November of 2001. He races up to me and leaps into my arms, his purrs the background music to a joyful reunion.
"And my dream goes on, with me meeting each of my beloved pets along the way – including basset Woody, who died just months after Mom – until I finally see, in the distance, the Piet Mondrian house whose picture hangs on the wall of my home office. And as I get closer I can see my first yellow lab Thumper, and standing behind him, my mom and dad and Granny …
"My fantasy always ends there, however. I can’t seem to get any closer. Maybe there are simply some joys that are too overwhelming for an earthly heart to handle."
--From Heaven Without Her, page 246
"I have my own ideas about my arrival there, anyway – ideas firmly grounded in earthly things, however, so they probably aren’t even remotely true.
"Still, it’s all I have to work with. And so my fantasy begins with suddenly finding myself walking down a dirt road on a perfect summer day, surrounded by flowering shrubs and big old trees and zillions of flowers. The birds are singing and the butterflies are flitting and there are bunnies and foxes and horses all over the place.
"As I stroll along, I suddenly notice a cat coming towards me – a white cat, it seems. As we get closer to each other, I notice that the cat has gray paws and ears and amazing blue eyes. And then in the blink of an eye I realize that it’s my precious Siamese Sam, who died in November of 2001. He races up to me and leaps into my arms, his purrs the background music to a joyful reunion.
"And my dream goes on, with me meeting each of my beloved pets along the way – including basset Woody, who died just months after Mom – until I finally see, in the distance, the Piet Mondrian house whose picture hangs on the wall of my home office. And as I get closer I can see my first yellow lab Thumper, and standing behind him, my mom and dad and Granny …
"My fantasy always ends there, however. I can’t seem to get any closer. Maybe there are simply some joys that are too overwhelming for an earthly heart to handle."
--From Heaven Without Her, page 246
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