hannah and me and death
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part twenty-six))


so, the other day (must have been friday, because hannah kept asking me why i felt it necessary to look out the window every time i wasn't doing something. i wasn't really sure how to answer. i didn't really know. it probably seemed quite obsessive to the curious five year-old.), i was finishing up a workout. i remember i still had my ipod on. i had been listening to a mix of old zebrahead and even older rufio. zebrahead was rap-rocking in my ear at the time. i was still breathing hard. my body felt swollen from the exertion of the previous hour's work. i was about to listen to "night letters" and imagine my most recent "enemy" knocking on the door. and then it happened. i think i have described them here in several different ways. most often i refer to them as my deathdreams. i wish i could describe it in more detail, but they usually don't arrive with much detail to explain. it's like a flash. for no apparent reason, my mortality catches up with me. it hits me that some day that i hope happens to be many, many years from now i will die. and now, my already heavy breathing changes it's shape. it's not heavy for the next few seconds as much as it is fast. fast with panic. i try and think of other things. the song in my ears. the braves. my girls. anything. but for probably five seconds or so, i can't get a grip. but then i do. get a grip, that is. i am able to divert my attention to something else. i check my pulse as i so often do to make sure there is one. i find "night letters". and i finish up the workout. the workout that the only redeeming quality is the music. the workout that i often dread. the workout that i don't want to do but do anyway, because i don't want to be fat. i am retarded. i digress.

hannah's been thinking a lot about heaven lately. asking a lot of questions. god, i hope that she is just thinking about heaven and not really death. thinking about heaven because she hears a lot about it at school and at church. in both environments (same place, really), it is thought of, as well it should be, as awesome enough to get her own imagination rocking away. we've heard things like...

"will i be old when i get to heaven?"

"will we have a house in heaven?"

"will we live together (with mommy and daddy and caroline) in heaven?"

"will i get to see jesus in heaven?"

"what's heaven like?"

"will maine be in heaven?"

"what will my body be like in heaven?"

"will KAMmie and punkin be in heaven?"

uh-oh.

she is thinking about death. at least, what little experience she has with it. we've lost two of our pets in the last couple of years. we tried to mask the real reason that they both had to "go to the doctor", but she's a smart little girl. for weeks after we took punkin to the vet never for her to return, hannah would ask about the cat. where did she go? where is she now? that sort of thing. her reaction to KAMmie's tragic passing was more subtle. i think hannah enjoyed the idea of having a puppy more than the execution. she was probably a little too young to fully get into a dog that was bigger than her, but she did like talking about her. much to my surprise and on some days chagrin, she still does. on the days that she asks about her old pets, it's quite fascinating to watch her young mind process the information. she will get lost in a stare or haze in which it is quite obvious that she is trying to make sense of something in this world that will probably never make sense.

and as her father, this makes me very, very sad.

it's a scary thing to me for her that i am her "daddy". that it is me (and her mom and others to come i am certain) that god would have her pose these questions to. i could not be any more (can any of us?) unsure of the true truth to her questions about death and heaven. there are many days (i'll take a stab and say those are the days most probably marked with deathdreams) that my mind makes me painfully aware that i am skeptical such a thing as heaven even exists. a prize at the end of this tunnel that is life. a goal that i can obtain by grasping tightly to my christian upbringing in the hopes that i don't and haven't spent however many years following some foolish delusion. a goal, that if there is such a thing, i would wish to share with every person or thing that has made my life a better place but may not subscribe to the same belief system as i do. a goal that i have a hard time reconciling the idea of my god not allowing to some good person whose life journey did not lead to a committed and convicted life where they saw jesus as their savior. a goal that sounds too good to be true.

yeah, but george michael said you just "gotta have faith-a, faith-a, faith-ah!"

i know. and i get that. and on most days, that is good enough to get me through it all. i read more bible. pray a little more. find a content (and sometimes lonely) place.

what i don't get is how odd it feels when i answer these big questions coming from my oldest daughter. i've never delivered any answer with such confidence and ease as i do when i am making sure she is soothed by my responses in a way that i hope she can refocus on hannah montana and un-focus on whether i'll be with her for eternity. and it's not that i am telling her what i think she wants to hear or what i think she needs to hear. most of my responses come from a very ingrained and involuntary place, but i don't know that i feel like i have been training or conditioning.

then again, maybe i have. and maybe it's for moments like these. when my too young and too little girl begins to ponder the mysteries of the universe. and so i respond. with as much truth as my experience leads me to believe that i have. and in those moments, she seems to feel better. and i feel better because she feels better. it's only after she is satisfied that i will walk away and begin to fight off another panic attack. and begin to wish that i had that someone that i trusted that could comfort me in the same way i hope i comforted her.

in a ridiculous kind of way, i am thankful for my deathdreams. they are a nice reminder that i have some spiritual work yet to accomplish.

if i have somehow honestly passed my anxiety on to my girls, though, i am hateful towards the means that provided that cruel end.

this is only the beginning. i know. she and caroline will only get older and smarter and ask bigger and more pointed questions that i'll need to be prepared for with honest and intelligent answers. i'll have to know when it's right to tell them "i don't know". and i'll have to do it without freaking out, myself, in front of them and running off to some corner to suck my thumb.

because, for today, it's only about heaven and death.

can you imagine the shit they are in for when they ask me what's wrong with our church?

ha-ha-ha. you think you're so clever, don't you? you're stupid.

i doubt this is the last time we'll talk about this.