I often wondered when you’d get here: would I have to wait long or would the time pass quicker than I ever knew it could. I started counting the days so that I would have some sense of time. Before I knew it, I was caught up in seeing everyone who greeted me with the same question as I’m greeting you now. What took you so long?
There were things I needed to take care of. I had to leave knowing everything would be arranged. I needed time to make sure that there were no more loose ends. My life could never have a loose end.
Still I’ve been waiting and I have wanted to tell you so much. There have been things happening up here that no amount of shouting can make the ones down there listen. I was shouting to you a lot, but you never seemed to hear. I watched you move your life from one safe place to the other, without so much as help from anyone else. You appeared strong, but I saw underneath. Here, there’s nothing but crude honesty. Here the best tool you have is sincerity because nothing that was down there can ever matter here.
I’m still new to everything you’re telling me. I will need your help. Down there I would never have been able to ask for your help. Up here it seems natural. I arrived and there were tears streaming down my face as I saw my dear son. My only son, my love. He smiled and opened his arms, wide, he was screaming it’s so good you’re finally here. I never knew such love. I never saw myself cry. Just now.
You finally become who you would have been if times weren’t so hard down there when you lived. Here there’s no fear and there’s no pain. This is love and happiness at its purest and soon you will forget what it was like to live down there. My dear sister, you will see that nothing compares to being here.
I’ve missed you the most. I never told you, but I love you dearly. I watched you over the years, living next to me, cooking and cleaning, coming and leaving and then silently disappearing. I loved your daughter like my own, but I could never show it. I never cried and I never showed love and that left me empty and unwholesome, yearning for simply, a touch. I held my son as he slipped away from me to come here. I held my husband as he vanished from me to come here. After I had no one else to hold, I started making plans to come here too.
Your son and husband have been waiting a long time to see you. We often sit together and reminisce about times spent down there. They miss your cooking and the soft touch of your weary hands that took care of them. In hours of need, you were always there, without a word, you held them. Now they want to take care of you. Their bodies are free of disease and their hearts are pure, just like yours or mine.
What about our mother?
You’ll see her, there’s time. You have to get to know her all over again. She’s not the woman who raised us. She’s not the bitter and broken woman who got beaten by frustration. She’s a free woman. She is free of the burden of six children. She is free of the burden of a husband. She walks around all day long and comes to see her children, and we talk and laugh and tell each other secrets that we never knew we had. She embroiders all of Heaven’s tablecloths and she smiles and sings all the time.
The pain is gone from my fingers. The pain of lifting heavy pots and pans as a little girl.
There is no pain here.
The swelling’s gone from my arms and legs.
There is no pain here.
Your heart is silent.
My dear sister, there is peace here.
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