My sister called yesterday having seen an eagle in her tree ( among other signs but that is her story) and having never seen one there before in all their years living in this house she knew it was a sign from Joey, as the hawk I saw and keep seeing trying to get my attention are my signs. 

It has made me thoughtful about the what after, what happens when we die, do we look back at our life and wonder was it worth it, did we do everything we could for human and animal kind?

Do we watch as we are mourned, at our funeral do we place our arms around those we love to offer solace? 

I did see my ex-husband at his funeral for only a second but standing between his two brothers and my truck, which never dies, leaving my son’s graveside shut off then started right back up as I sat trying to make sense of it. 

I know a few things, I know when my youngest son died he opened his eyes with his last breathe and looked right at whoever came to take him to hold him, I know my mom saw someone sitting in a chair waiting for her shortly before she died and she kept asking me who it was and I know my son did the same, he asked me who was the person sitting over in the chair and as hard as I tried to see both times all I saw was an empty chair.

I know these things.

I know all of us in my family after mom died have seen a double rainbow without rain and each one of us knew it was mom. I know we are now all seeing birds in odd places at odd times in odd ways and we all know it is my son. He was finishing up Turbine school and one of the last things he got to do was work on a large B 52 (I think) airplane at Castle air force base, which he was so proud of and he showed me a picture of it the day in the hospital before his first stroke, we are having the wings he would have had tattooed on his body placed on his gravestone, so birds make sense, mom loved rainbows, again makes sense. 

So thoughtful me wonders when we die do we have an oh shit moment, a moment where we look back for a minute and realize the money is not what life is about, nor the cars, homes, boats, jobs, do we look back and if we lived our life well, if we loved well, treated others well, do we smile and get to help, to comfort those we left behind? Do we get to wait for them to come join us?

I just finished a book about a young boy who died on the operating table and brings back his vision of talking with Jesus and seeing God and there were thrones, golden roads, halos and wings abounding and that bothered me. I don’t want to get to heaven to have to live in a way I would never have chosen here on Earth, so I thought about this a few days trying to make sense of it.

I finally have and have decided what the small boy saw was what he had been taught by his preacher father from the Bible, not saying that is wrong but that at 5 it was his interpretation of what he thought he would see and to comfort him that is what he saw. 

I think heaven will be what we want it to be, maybe what we have earned in this life by living it well, taking care of others before us and loving with all out heart, if there were to be no heaven is that still not the right way to live? 

I think, in my heaven, I will be surrounded by so many animals it will take me a year to get to them all and that my family and I will sit, sing and eat to our hearts content, smiling happy all together once again forever. 

I also believe heaven will be a place filled with peace and happiness, just like what we have now without the war, hate, pestilence and greed. 

But then again these are just my thoughts….