Excuse me God, I have to Pee

I was very modest as a child, and I worried about people seeing me when I didn't want to be seen (I still do, but, that is another story for another day).  When my twin sister and I were around 5 or 6, my mother was getting dressed to go to church or a funeral, I can't remember now which one (they are both equally uplifting in my opinion...I said myopinion), we were sitting on her bed watching her put her jewelry on, and we starting talking about dying and what happens when a person dies.

My mother said, "When someone dies, if they are good (don't ask me to define "good"), they will go to Heaven."  I asked her what Heaven is like.  She began describing it as an otherworldly, expansive dominion where everyone would be peaceful and loving and nothing bad would ever happen.  A place where ethereal beings (she said, "angels," I like "ethereal beings"...more descriptive) fly around and play the harp and sing all day long (I didn't think that sounded peaceful).  Everyone is taken care of and loved by God.  Everyone in Heaven lounges around on enormous soft feathery clouds without a care.

At the age of 5 or 6, my concept of a cloud was an impressive white sparse cotton ball that wouldn't be strong enough to hold me up (even though I was a stick person of a child).  This worried me.  I had visions of trying to sit on a cloud, but falling through, falling back to earth, and God might be too busy to catch me and the angels would be way too busy with their harp-playing to notice me!

During this imaginative daydream, my love of privacy kicked in and I asked my mom where I was supposed to go to the bathroom in Heaven if everything is made out of clouds.  People can see through the clouds and they might see me pee.  I was in a panic of sorts.  I did not want this to happen!  I did not want to go to Heaven.

I don't recall my mother laughing at me out loud (she could have later, when I left the room, I don't know if she did).  She didn't stop putting on her makeup to answer my question.  She simply said, "I don't think you have to worry about going to the bathroom anymore when you get to Heaven."

What the hell (ok, poor choice of words) kind of answer was that?  Was that supposed to calm me down?  Now I had even more questions.  Why wouldn't I have to go to the bathroom anymore?  Are my internal organs going to shut down?  I was afraid to ask anything else, I didn't want to know anything else.  I stood up, left my mom to finish dressing, ran down the hall to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind me.

--Fortuitous Observer  

Comments

[Becky]

It's funny how parents make things up to answer our questions and have no idea the impact a small statement can make. I'm going to try and not make shit up and be honest when I don't know the answer to something. I asked my mother why beds had two sheets on them, a fitted and a flat, and her answer to me was "You'll find out when you grow up". Well...I've grown up...and been grown up for quite a while. Whenever I bring it up and ask her to explain herself she always says "You must have been asking too many questions that day and I just said anything to shut you up."

[Fortuitous Observer]

That's a great question: why are there two sheets? When you get the answer, let me know : ) !!!!