That Which is You

One day when when Adri was about four years old and we were riding bikes after dinner on a pleasant summer evening we came upon a dead bird in the alley near a cow pasture.

“What happened, daddy?” she asked with her big eyes.

“Well, maybe it got sick or maybe it got hit by a car. I don’t really know,” I replied, treading carefully.

“But what about its mommy and daddy? Will they wonder where it is, why it didn’t come home?”

I didn’t really know how to answer. They were animals, but animals have emotions, no? This is just how life works? This is what will happen to every living being? She continued, saving my silence:

“Will the bird be in heaven now?”

Another tough one for me. I tried to not influence her thoughts, beliefs, and philosophies, but also tried to always answer her truthfully. I didn’t want to say, “there’s no afterlife,” I didn’t want to needlessly pull that carpet out from under her. Let her have that comfort, let her decide for herself one day.

“Well, many people believe that even animals go to heaven, that all living things that meant something to someone or something else will be there,” I offered.

“But will the mommy and daddy remember this little bird so much later when they’re in heaven, too?”

Good question, Adri, and one that I wrestled with when I was younger, and one that many, even those who whole-heartedly accept and believe in the concept of an afterlife in general and heaven in particular may wonder about.

When we are all reunited in heaven, how will everyone recognize each other? If your grandparent saw you for the last time when you were just two months old, how will they know it’s you? What age are you in heaven, at what stage of development are you manifested? How can all your friends and family, each of who must also be on a different continuum of development, know who each other are? How does the grandparent recognize the baby they knew? If the grandparent is in a form that their grandparent can recognize, how does the grandchild recognize their grandparent, also last seen when they were just two months old?

If you don’t get to be you in heaven in order to be known by everyone who knew you along your lifetime, what is the point? 

Will that bird know its nest?

During her young life Adri and I talked about all this in more depth, but that evening during our bike ride we left it at that and eventually continued our ride. But we never forgot that bird.

Eventually, we were able to come up with an explanation, a possibility that allowed for the existence of heaven and an afterlife where everyone could know and recognize everyone and still be themselves.

Where birds could find their nests.

We each have an idea who we are. We walk around in bodies that are constantly changing, but inside we remain the same. We may gain or lose weight, our hair may thin or change color, wrinkles may arise, scars may form, or muscles lose tone, but inside, who we are to ourselves remains the same.

There’s a continuity to who we are to ourselves, trapped in this body that survives the ravishes of time, a sort of homunculus that’s just along for the ride in an exterior shell that is constantly changing outward form. 

Almost always when I look in the mirror or see a current photograph of myself I’m taken aback for a second: “Who is that person?” I wonder reflexively, because the image I see does not match the image I have of myself from my interior vantagepoint. 

This of course becomes more pronounced the older one gets. Your body ages, but “you” do not. 

I finally realized that if there is a heaven or afterlife of that sort, that is how we will know each other. Whatever is inside of you that you consider “you,” the “you” that is betrayed and apparently contradicted by the exterior version that confronts you unforgivingly in the mirror as you age… that is what people will see and know and recognize. 

The unchanging you that you’ve been your whole life is finally seen by everyone in that same manner, and thus of course they know who you are. This consistent persona, this immortal being, is the same for your grandfather as well as and your grandchild. Or your third-grade teacher. Or your pet cat from when you were eight. Or your college roommate.

Or the bird. 

Or your 36-year-old daughter who never saw you become an old man.