Houses in Heaven

She was spending the night at her friend's house. Her friend was one year older, but that wouldn't matter unitl her friend went to Junior High, while she had to stay back in sixth grade with the babies.

Her friend's dad had died, too. Her friend was telling her about what went on after you died. Her friend said: "You go up to heaven, and there's this big street lined with little houses. Every soul gets their own house, not even married couples share." She pictured the little houses in neat rows, facing each other on opposit sides of a street made out of clouds. The lawns were all white, not green with grass like they were on Earth. "But what about God?" she asked her friend. Since her friend was a year older, she figured her friend had to know everything. "God's house is a huge house that sits at the very end of the street, perpendicular to the other houses." She didn't know what perpendicular meant, but she could picture the huge house at the end of the row of houses.

"What do you think God looks like?" she asked her friend. Her friend answered confidently: "He looks just like a man. You know who God is, don't you?" She shook her head no. "He's just the guy who was lucky enough to be the first one to die. He got up to heaven, and it was all empty, so he built a big house out of all the lumber up there, because there wasn't anybody around to tell him not to. Then since he had the biggest house, and was the first guy there, he just made himself king and wrote all the heavenly laws. If my dad would have died just a few years earlier than he did he would have been God."

She thought about how neat it would be to have God for a dad and fell asleep thinking about little houses on straight white streets.

Clouds

When the bullying was worst, she would turn to her favorite day dream. She could fly, and the clouds were made of cotton candy. She would take an empty coffee can up into the sky, and fill it full of cotton candy clouds, which were the most fantastic treat imaginable; better than chocolate or bubble gum even. She would swoop back down to the play ground with the can full of clouds and all the children would run to her cheering and begging for even a tiny bite of celestial cotton candy. She was never selfish or cruel with the treat, either, but handed it out as if it were nothing, and all the children loved her for doing something no one else could do for them. But then the dream was shattered by the next shove or being tripped in the hallway or finding that awful nickname scrawled on her notebook, and the cloud dream evaporated like a rain drop on the summer side walk.

Second Place for Life

Her lover's best friend then said "Her kids could be in their 40's and she'd be at your funeral when they text her to say one of them broke a fingernail and she'd be out of there like a shot. Face it, if she has kids, you are permanently assigned to second place in her life. If you don't accept that, you're screwed."