Strange Highways

The dazzling white-pink blossoms of spring were long gone, of course, and the branches were bedecked with fruit not yet quite ripe. The day was hot, but the tree threw plentiful, cool shade.
     At last he said, "Daddy?"
     "Hmmmm?"
     "If it's all right with you ..."
     "What?"
     "I know what you say ...."
     "What I say about what?"
     "About there being no Heaven or angels or anything like that."
     "It's not just what I say, Benny. It's true."
     "Well ... just the same, if it's all right with you, I'm going to picture Mommy in Heaven, wings and everything."
     He was still in a fragile emotional condition even a month after her death and would need many more months if not years to regain his full equilibrium, so I didn't rush to respond with one of my usual arguments about the foolishness of religious faith. I was silent for a moment, then said, "Well, let me think about that for a couple of minutes, okay?"
     We sat side by side, staring across the valley, and I knew that neither of us was seeing the landscape before us. I was seeing Ellen as she had been on the Fourth of July the previous summer: wearing white shorts and a yellow blouse, tossing a Frisbee with me and Benny, radiant, laughing, laughing. I don't know what poor Benny was seeing, though I suspect his mind was brimming with gaudy images of Heaven complete with haloed angels and golden steps spiraling up to a golden throne.
     "She can't just end," he said after a while. "She was too nice to just end. She's got to be ... somewhere."
     "But that's just it, Benny. She is somewhere. Your mother goes on in you. You've got her genes, for one thing. You don't know what genes are, but you've got them: her hair, her eyes .... And because she was a good person who taught you the right values, you'll grow up to be a good person as well, and you'll have kids of your own someday, and your mother will go on in them and in their children. Your mother still lives in our memories, too, and in the memories of her friends. Because she was kind to so many people, those people were shaped to some small degree by her kindness. They'll now and then remember her, and because of her they might be kinder to people, and that kindness goes on and on."
     He listened solemnly, although I suspected that the concepts of immortality through bloodline and impersonal immortality through one's moral relationships with other people were beyond his grasp. I tried to think of a way to restate it so a child could understand.
     But he said, "Nope. Not good enough. It's nice that lots of people are gonna remember her. But it's not good enough. She has to be somewhere. Not just her memory. She has to go on. So if it's all right with you, I'm gonna figure she's in Heaven."
     "No, it's not all right, Benny." I put my arm around him. "The healthy thing to do, son, is to face up to unpleasant truths-"
     He shook his head. "She's all right, Daddy. She didn't just end. She's somewhere now. I know she is. And she's happy."
     "Benny-"
     He stood, peered up into the trees, and said, "We'll have cherries to eat soon?"
     "Benny, let's not change the subject. We-"
     "Can we drive into town for lunch at Mrs. Fosters restaurant - burgers and fries and Cokes and then a cherry sundae?"
     "Benny-"
     "Can we, can we?"
     "All right. But-"
     "I get to drive!" he shouted and ran off toward the garage, giggling at his joke.

     During the next year, Benny's stubborn refusal to let his mother go was at first frustrating, then annoying, and finally intensely aggravating. He talked to her nearly every night as he lay in bed, waiting for sleep to come, and he seemed confident that she could hear him. Often, after I tucked him in and kissed him good night and left the room, he slipped out from under the covers, knelt beside the bed, and prayed that his mother was happy and safe where she had gone.
     Twice I accidentally heard him. On other occasions I stood quietly in the hall after leaving his room, and when he thought I had gone downstairs, he humbled himself before God, although he could know nothing more of God than what he had illicitly learned from television shows or other pop culture that I had been unable to monitor.
     I was determined to wait him out, certain that his childish faith would expire