At bedtime tonight, I was tucking Aaron in and he complained that it was too bright in his bed. His reading lamp was on, so I switched it off and he immediately remembered that he wanted a story. I offered to make up a story, and suggested, “Imagine that we’re on a flying carpet. Where do you want to go?” Aaron screwed up his face in disgust and complained, “This isn’t a flying carpet!”
Just then, Aidan walked into their bedroom, exclaiming, “Imagination! Oh yes, can I do it too?” as he scaled the climbing wall to his top bunk. I asked both boys if, perhaps, the bunk was a pirate ship, or an elevator ... what would they like it to be? Then Aidan answered, “I have a suggestion ...” and I jumped on for the ride as Aidan narrated me through visions of a fantasy story in the night sky.
We’re walking on air. We’re in the sky and it’s dark now. But the stars are as light as the moon. Our whole family is here and we’re all amazed that we can walk on the sky.
Ahead of us on our path, we see two shapes that appear to be cats. One is a ginger tabby and the other is a small calico. The ginger tabby greets us and says, "My owners.” “My owners?” Can it be? It is ... Garfunkel! And the other cat, with a female voice, is Jazz. Austin asks, “How did you learn to speak like this - in English?” Garf explains, “We didn’t. It’s natural. We can speak to all creatures in their own language.” Then we heard, “Auch, auch!” and Garf explained that was the language of a hawk, saying, “Hello, you are here.”
Garf explained that we are in heaven, but we are not dead. All creatures can simply walk between heaven and earth whenever they feel like it. But he cautioned that we must not let any scientists know about this, or heaven will be spoiled. He was afraid that scientists would bring too many materials to heaven.
Jazz explained about the underworld and how creatures don’t get there the way we always believed they do. Whenever a creature perishes, it goes directly to heaven. It’s when the creature tries to escape heaven by way of a pathway, they often end up in the underworld. There are many escape routes from heaven, and they all lead to pathways which are littered with holes that lead directly to the underworld. Only on very rare occasions, can a creature successfully escape heaven and return to earth alive, on the pathway. Fish, however, are the most successful at this. Even when a fish is killed, it’s heart continues to beat, so when we think the fish has died, it is still alive.
Garf sadly recalled a story he had learned from elders about a battle which took place millions of years ago, between the dogs and the humans. We were so surprised, because, “But dogs are man’s best friend!” “Not in heaven,” Jazz replied. Garf explained that the battle caused a crack in the bridge between the underworld and heaven, when the two places were as one ... both were like heaven, where all good dreams come true. This crack created millions of tiny dust particles that broke apart, then joined together that created life on a tiny speck to create life and earth. So Earth was created between the underworld and heaven.
We heard a female voice coming nearer, and Aaron turned around to see a beautiful cat. He asked, “Jazz?” and Mom turned around and called out, “Furina!” It was Mom’s cat from when she grew up. Furina was able to split into all her ages, so she appeared in all the forms of her whole life. Mom picked her up and hugged her, and Furina purred in her arms.
There are many rainbow bridges ... too many to count. There is a different rainbow bridge for every species in the universe.
Garf was happy when he looked over to a bridge and saw a human and dog building a bridge together. Humans and dogs had united again, to rebuild the rainbow bridges.
