Telling Him I’m Okay

Who should I meet first when I walk into the beyond?

My grandfather is the first man that comes to mind, the man who used to sort of put the straight in my back at a holler. The man who used to pick his face absentmindedly while watching old Westerns.

I loved him.

He was mine like I was his, always feeling welcomed and warmed. We did projects out in the garage together, making rocking chairs, talked about carpentry and how tools were used.

Such a smart man.

I'm glad he didn't have to suffer much longer.

The world wasn't giving him much familiar faces, his eyes were tired and his bitter old wife was just sucking the life out of him. (That's okay, I hated her too.)

And then my familiar, my beautiful orange paints tabby, the meanest thing around but if I hollered her name once. She'd stop whatever she was doing, whoever she was assaulting and she'd look at me with that knowing look.

Beautiful girl. Chitter chattering away with me, playing tag and all sorts of other games. She was... breathtaking, beautiful in old age and quiet in death. Curled up neatly in my lap and I'd like to think we might join together as one being, forever combined in death while bringing comfort to her dearest baby brother. The runt.

So here, here I am collecting the toll of souls I'd like to meet in the beyond. Who I'd like to be reborn with or meet again if they haven't dove back into the third dimension and we might smile at each other a while, wait till we've all gathered up and move forward into the next life so we might try it all again. And again... till our souls are so old and full of experience that we can lay ourselves to eternal rest in the rocks and the trees, in the breeze. Eternal. Forever and hardly needed to be remembered by anyone, for anyone that mattered had already gone along with us.