Heaven Can Wait

• Olivia Nolan, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2014

Even with my ear pressed firmly against the door, I could barely make out the hushed voices from the office beside me. Through the frosted glass, I could see a man; I guess he was a doctor, hunched over his desk. Another man and woman appeared to be huddled together on the other side like people trying to keep warm around a campfire. I stopped peering and listened intently.
My heart pounded and my face flushed with embarrassment. I was not totally convinced that I should even be trying to overhear this conversation. Yet I still found myself pasting the words together. In my mind, I could see jumbled words cut out of a newspaper like a ransom note in the movies. Sorry, cancer, brain tumour, inoperable, not much time. How can this be? The beautiful little girl playing in the corner of the waiting room, is that who they are talking about? I steal a quick glance at her. She already looks like an angel with cherub-like features, blonde curls and rosy cheeks.
A few months ago she was probably a typical four-year-old learning to ride her bike, trying to read bed-time stories and playing dress-ups. How can she be running out of time when her life has hardly begun?
I pray silently but my prayers are interrupted by the heart-wrenching sound of someone crying. I try to concentrate. My mind darts from the little girl and her prognosis to my own future. How am I going to die? If I’m going to die ravaged with pain where will I go? What is heaven? Does it even exist?
Maybe heaven is a fairy-tale that kids are told when they're dying so they’re not frightened. Is that what makes them so courageous when they are terminally ill and know they are going to die? Do they see passing as an adventure or a trip to a magical land with fairies and angels? This version seems dramatically different from the ideas postulated in The Bible; a Garden of Eden with lots of fruit and no snake, of course. Maybe, as Buddhists believe, there are seven heavens, and when you have had enough time there you are reborn.
I’m beginning to think that heaven is a state of mind. In my perfect heaven, there are no sick or angry people. There is no poverty, war or racism. I would have chocolate fountains for all the kids. I start to think of people I know who are already in heaven. Chelsea who died 3 weeks ago from something rare; she is definitely in heaven.
Suddenly, I get it. Everyone’s perfect heaven is different. We are not supposed to die until we are at peace with ourselves and know what we want our heaven to be. That’s why people die at different ages because some quickly know what their heaven is and others take a long time to work it out. So, heaven can wait until I have truly figured it out.