At this moment, I’m sitting in my childhood room. Nothing much has changed. The soft toys are still there (I’m a human being. Of course I had soft toys.) I have this custom made bear that when you press a button, it says, “Hello, my name is Dōmoto Shun’ichi. I love to play Yoyo everyday. Bye bye.” Don’t ask me why I said that or what went through my mind. I was a child. Such was the young me. Looking around, my old bed and my studying desk remains here.

There is a specific moment in this room that I recalled to when I was around 9. I remembered praying really hard. I prayed that time will stop. I prayed that my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my loved ones and the friends of my loved ones will not age. I was hoping that we will live in a really big house and that we will live happily together. As I cried through the innocence of a child, I wanted all of us to live forever.

Little did I know that I was dreaming of Heaven.

Time passed and I grew up, ‘accepting’ that permanence is an illusion of grandeur. I started imagining a different scenario that would play out in the future. I dreamt that I would be very successful in my career. I would have graduated top of my class, got promoted at work really quickly and able to afford two houses side by side (one for my family and one for my parents). The houses will have a game room, music room, cineplex, swimming pool and all that jazz that you can think of. I would live at luxurious hotels and wear branded clothes. It was going to be spectacularly awesome.

This was my second iteration of Heaven.

There were probably a few more iterations along the way but I can’t remember anymore and they don’t matter anyway.

On the 15th of November 2008, I got word that my grandmother was extremely ill and the doctors said that she won’t make it through the day. I shut the door of my room and started praying. This was the hardest I ever did in my entire life and I begged that my grandmother would have at least one more day.

She did have one more day and that was the first miracle I can remember taking place in my life.

This was my first call to Heaven. 

Her death wouldn’t have been the first death I have experienced but it would be the first one that affected me profoundly because I remembered more things at 15 and I was close to her.

Two days later, she passed away. Following that, in a span of 5 years, my grandfather and uncle followed suit and went up to the Lord. Strangely enough, I accepted all of their deaths and took it in rather well because since the age of 9, I knew nothing was permanent and that eventually, everyone has to go. No one gets a free pass.

As I grew older, I realized how shallow my second iteration of heaven is for all the riches and success in this world will eventually give you nothing. Your happiness today can be shattered in a matter of seconds admits life’s fragile state akin to Shakespeare’s brief candle. Your materialism lulls you into a false sense of security and enlightenment but at what cost and for how long?

I feel I was almost right on the money with the first iteration. Isn’t that what heaven is, a place where you live forever?

I wish I can empirically tell you yes! Yes! Heaven is a glorious place. It is crazily insanely amazing. I wish I can but no one knows for sure. No one is a hundred percent sure. I know I am not but hear Pascal (who was a physicist and mathematician) out, “It is not our shallow intellect that can grasp God, we meet him in our heart, in our spirit – that is where faith is.”

I can’t tell you what heaven is but my faith can.

I have a dream. A dream where one day I’ll go to this place called Heaven. I’ll meet Jesus there and will walk with him in the garden. I’ll tell him everything and all the stories of my life. I’ll tell him I tripped and fell when I was 5, hitting my head in the process. I’ll tell him about my other fall where my forehead got swollen when my head hit the goalpost. I’ll tell him how I proud I was when I didn’t cry when I scraped my knees on the road at 13. 

He’ll say, “I know. I was there. I was there every single step of the way. I was there when you fall. When you laugh, I laugh. When you cry, I cry. When you were sad, I poured out all my tears for you. I was there with you every single step of the way, Augustine.”

Heaven is where I return home and finally, able to rest in the arms of God. Heaven is the beginning of the end. Heaven is the ethereal reality. Our lives on earth is no longer the end and permanence is no longer an illusion.

There has to be something more than this. There will be something greater than this.

When I was a kid, I believed in the impossible. I thought I could fly and I could fight dragons. I could reach for the stars and never grow old.

What if I tell you that it was never impossible and that the innocence and purity of a child gives light to the greater truth? 

That’s for you to find out. That’s for your heart to learn. Maybe one day, we will realise that our little selves were right all along.