“What’s Heaven like?" three-year-old Matthew asks with eyes as wet as April and a trembling lower lip.
We have just buried the little boy’s pet hamster in a
velvet-lined watch box, capping the tiny grave with a
paving stone. Gone to Heaven, my
husband has inscribed the marker with a piece of yellow chalk.
“Heaven is happy,” I say, patting the pudgy hands that
so often had cradled silky, little Munchie to his heart.
“But, what is Heaven like?” my son asks again, because happy means
too many things to really comfort him.
“Oh, Heaven is lovely and it’s warm,” I try again, remembering
how poor Munchkin had shivered at the end.
By now the child is sitting in my lap. I trace the even ridges where a plastic
bandage protects one badly scraped knee.
“Heaven is happy and lovely and warm and safe--a place where
little boys don’t ever get skinned knees,” I say at last.
My son relaxes then. I feel the tension ebbing as he settles
back beneath my chin.
“Because the sidewalks there are soft? He lifts his lighted
face to ask.
“Because,” I say and hold him very close.
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| "Because the sidewalks there are soft?" he turns his lighted face to ask. |
