This Side of the Border

It would be difficult I think to find a gardener who didn't find spring to be the most exciting time of the year. Barren earth comes alive with brilliant sprigs of green, trees flower and the air is alive and fresh. The kids forget about indoor activities and tear around the yard with the dogs, stopping occasionally to help with the gardening.

The evidence of new life is especially sweet this spring as it has been a troubling winter with friends, family and neighbours fighting illness, some losing the battle, and others suffering the fatigue that a fight with cancer inevitably brings. The kids have been observing this over the cold months and seem to be passed the point where a simple answer about heaven will suffice. Lil is a live-in-the-moment kind of kid, and once established that texting and e-mailing ceases to be an option post-mortem, she pretty much lost interest in the subject. Grace on the other hand is a researcher, listening and waiting to ask the important questions...which would be fine except that Tony and I really haven't sorted out the answers despite having witnessed many life and death events over the course of our careers.

To simplify our philosophies I've classified our after life theories according to the 3 R's...reduce, reuse and recycle. I think the all-dogs-go-to-heaven philosophy fits neatly into reduction. We lose the old, sore, bent out of shape human form and our spirit soars up to the heavens where we visit all our previously passed family, friends and spy on the poor sods that are still stuck on earth. This fits with some of the code room accounts of people hanging out above the ER team, watching themselves be resuscitated while floating towards a warm loving light. I buy into this theory although Tony thinks its all brain activity producing the effects of floating above one's body and rescuers. If he's right, I would like to train my brain to float around so I can keep an eye on the kids when they reach their teens, but I suspect it is beyond the human skill level and there probably is some truth to the whole heaven thing.

Reuse explains the theory that perhaps we come back to earth reincarnated as a new person or animal. The Buddhists are pretty convincing in their arguments that we just keep coming back to new experiences, new learning opportunities. Every time I hear of a 4 year old who sits down at the piano and can magically play Beethoven as well as any musical scholar, my belief in reincarnation is reinforced. I once had a dream that was so startling unfamiliar but such a detailed account of a previous life I once led, that I am unable to ignore the possibility that I have been on this earth before. And when I met my husband Tony, he was so strangely familiar and we blended together so seamlessly that I felt that we had known each other for thousands of years. I'm also pretty sure I was a schnauzer at some time in my souls journey through time.

I am a recycler. We compost, recycle packaging, kitchen scraps, paper, anything that can have a useful purpose. I wonder if once we die, we just become compost. We feed the earth, and nourish the tomato plants and find a new purpose assisting the worms in their daily business. I remember as a child being told that we turn to dust, which I found quite disturbing when I was assigned to dusting the living room furniture as it seemed that every week, the house just filled up with dead people dust. Remembering my childhood interpretations I am keeping the recycling theory quiet for the moment until more evidence is available. Besides, I don't want to make the kids phobic about composting.

Grace finally had her say at daycare last week as she had been quizzing her teacher about her family. "Where is your grandma?" she asked Miss Cindy a few months ago.
"She's is heaven" was the response.
Last week it was, "Where are your Mom and Dad?"
Same response from Miss Cindy..."They are in heaven with the rest of my family"
Grace thought for awhile and then announced: "I"m going to stay in Canada!"

And so for the moment the questions are put to rest and we refocus on having a very long wonderful life this side of the border.