Page 30 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
“It’s huge.”
“Well, that’s how it looked to me. I had to run and leap when you called me.”
“Why are you—”
“Loneliness, Annie. That’s what I am here to explain. You suffered it. You tortured yourself over it. But you never understood it.”
“What’s to understand about being lonely?” Annie snapped. “It’s terrible.”
“Not always. Do you think, if you hadn’t felt so lonely, you would have chosen me at the shelter? Or taken off my collar to let me eat that first morning? Your loneliness gave me a home. And happiness.
“Remember what I said about empathy? It works both ways. I was wounded. Different. And you felt...”
Annie glanced at her detached left hand.
“Wounded,” she whispered. “Different.”
“And... ?”
“Alone.”
The woman nodded towards the giant pillows, and Annie saw a thousand nights of her childhood, cradling her beloved companion.
“Not alone,” Cleo said.
***
The landscape changed once more, back to the checkerboard lawns Annie had seen earlier and the countless dogs waiting patiently by the doors.
“Have you ever considered how many living things there are on earth?” Cleo asked. “People. Animals. Birds. Fish. Trees. It makes you wonder how anyone could feel lonely. Yet humans do. It’s a shame.”
She looked to the sky, now a deep shade of purple. “We fear loneliness, Annie, but loneliness itself does not exist. It has no form. It is merely a shadow that falls over us. And just as shadows die when light changes, that sad feeling can depart once we see the truth.”
“What’s the truth?” Annie asked.
“That the end of loneliness is when someone needs you.” The old woman smiled. “And the world is so full of need.”
***
With that, all the doors on all the lawns swung open, revealing countless grim-faced people, children on crutches, adults in wheelchairs, soldiers in dirt-stained uniforms, widowed women in veils. Annie sensed they were all in need of comfort in some way. The dogs sprang to them, tails wagging. They licked and nuzzled the sad people and were embraced and cradled in return. The grim faces melted into grateful smiles.
“This is my heaven,” Cleo said.
“Watching people come home?” Annie asked.
“Feeling the joy when they do. Souls reuniting. It’s something divine.”
“But it happens every day.”
Cleo tilted her head. “Don’t divine things happen every day?”
Annie watched the happy greetings with a twinge of regret. The afterlife, clearly, was to be filled with others; she could see that now. But her afterlife meant being withoutPaulo, the person she loved most. How could she ever be content?
“What is it, Annie?”
“My husband. I was trying to keep him alive. I don’t know if I did. All I remember is the operating room, a doctor’s hands on my shoulders, him saying, ‘See you in a little bit.’ But then, nothing.” Annie struggled with the words. “I’m all right with dying as long as Paulo lived. Just tell me my death wasn’t wasted.”
The old woman smiled.
