Do you "sprout a halo and play a harp?"

This summer I have not even read my usual 20 Bluebonnet Books, but hopefully I will get started on them soon. I have been able to get in a couple of children's books this summer. Both are super nad simple reads. The following thoughts come from a novel by Barbara Park entitled Mick Harte Was Here. I often find deep thoughts in "children's" books. (I use the quotations because these books are labeled as such only because of the reading level. Sometimes....my brain only gets it on that level.) It is these books that have that wonderful layered reading. You can read it lightly or get deeper into it. Yes, I even cried when reading this book. Sometimes I just have "a moment".

In this book, one of the main character,Mick, is killed in a bicycle accident. Mick's sister, Pheobe, is left with many questions and a life that is turned every which direction. I so understand how she feels about the people who visit, the way kids respond to her at school, and the way she deals with even her best friend or maybe I should say how her best friend deals with her. One of my favorite chapters is titled "Tap dancing on God's piano". The following is a portion of that chapter where Pheobe's friend Zoe is trying to help Pheobe, who wonders "Maybe there isn't a God at all, but says "I don't even want to go there", understand why this happened and what happens when you die:


"I've never thought much about heaven's specific location, okay? And anyway, the important thing is that heaven is where God is.
I rolled my eyes, "Yes, but that still doesn't tell me anything, Zoe. I mean what does it look like there? And what in the world do you do all day?
Things didn't get better. Zoe said, "You do God stuff."
My mouth practically dropped open with that one. "God stuff? What the heck is God stuff? You mean like right now you think Mick is reading Bible stories,and going around saying 'Peace be with you' and junk? Because that's a little hard to believe. Especially considering he got suspended from choir practice last year for tap dancing on the piano."
Zoe flopped back on her pillow. "Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you just tell me what you want me to say, and I'll say it."

Don't you wonder about "God stuff?" How do kids see "God stuff"? How do we see "God stuff"?
The story goes on with Pheobe telling about her two grandmothers' theories about Mick's accident.

" My nana from Florida keeps saying this is all part of God's plan for Mick. And we're not allowed to question the plan, or think that maybe the plan stinks. We just accept it.
And my other grandmother says that God must have needed Mick more than we did. Only that what kind of a selfish God is that? To just snatch somebody away from the people who love him? Not to mention the fact that it's a little hard to believe that the most powerful being in the entire universe needs a seventh-grader who can't even program a VCR without screwing up the TV."
Zoe frowned in thought. "So, maybe your grandmothers are wrong," she said. "Maybe Mick's accident wasn't planned at all. Maybe it was a real, honest-to-goodness accident, and God is just as sad about it as everybody else."

Wow! I remember thinking that I hoped that God was as sad as I was....for me, Makaley, Kauy, my family, Kelly's family, but not sad for Kelly.

Phoebe continues:
"I swallowed hard, "Zo, I want so bad to know he's okay. But I keep trying to picture him in my head. And I can't. 'Cause I just don't know where to put him anymore."
Zoe reached out her arms to me. And when she did, I caved in. Totally, I mean. Sobbing out of control.
She rubbed my back and waited for the worst of it to be over. And the, out of thin air, these magical words came out of her mouth.
"Put him everywhere, why don't you?" She shrugged, "It just sort of came to me," she said. "But it makes sense, don't you think, Phoeb? Because like if God is everywhere they way they say he is, and Mick is with God, then Mick could be everywhere too."
For a second I couldn't even answer. I was still just so amazed, you know? At how right it felt.
Slowly, I leaned back on the couch and tried to let it all sink in.
I thought she (Zo) had fallen asleep, when I felt her tap me on the foot.
"Phoeb?"
"Yeah?"
"I could be wrong, you know. He could just be up in the clouds tap dancing on God's piano."
I hit her with my pillow.

That was it! I wanted to know that Kelly was okay. I wanted to know that I would be okay. I tried to see him in my head so often, but couldn't. I still have a hard time of getting it right. I don't understand death. Do we really know where those who have gone from this life are right now? I read...I listen...I study...I read some more. Here is the uncertain....the part we don't know all about....the part where our faith is written on the bouquet of flowers on the casket, the headstone, and our hearts. We have shelves in our garages to put our junk, closets to hold our clothes, scrapbooks to put memories, hearts to hold memories, but where do we put the one we loved that is no longer here? I, like Phoebe, have not really known where to "put" Kelly. He resides forever in my heart....in a ton of photos and videos, and in the faces, hands and feet of my children. SO I choose to put him everywhere!! Where do I put my great-grandmother? My grandparents, my Becky, and others? And so.........I choose to put them everywhere! The words from a children's book has given me that permission! I don't get all the "God stuff". I won't even tell you that I pretend to think I do. So today during a rain shower........they were all there.....running through the rain with us.

This book will be in my bookshelf in my new office. I will have a student one day who like me doesn't "get it" and I will pull out this book. Even IF I have to call him/her in and read for 15 min. to them, we will get through it and discuss this chapter. Of course, Makaley will read this next. Even if I have to read it to her.