On Life and Heaven

My sons have recently been cracking me up with their honest and deep questions and thoughts about life. 

About two weeks ago, my husband came home from grocery shopping and started unloading.  I was helping him put everything away when my older son entered the kitchen.  His eyes lit up when they rested upon a full, unopened box of Capri Suns.  His face broke into a huge smile and he looked at me, eyes wide and sparkling.  “There’s, like, no better sight than a full box of Capri Suns,” he commented as he ripped open the box and retrieved one.  As he popped the straw in, I began to muse aloud.  “I know exactly how you’re feeling, son. It’s like when I used to smoke in college. There was no better feeling than a full pack of cigarettes in my hand…”

I got that faraway look in my eyes that I get when I’m reminiscing about the good old days until I was snapped out of my reverie by my husband’s pointed cough.  “Mom?” the hubs said wearily, his eyebrows raised in a glance toward our son, hanging on my every word. 

“Oh,” I said, catching myself.  “Oh.  Well.  Of course I gave up the habit years ago…”

“Then why did I catch you smoking in the backyard with your friends last summer?” my older son asked.

“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE IN BED!” I said for the millionth time.  We’d been over this before.

Listen, peeps.  I know smoking is stupid. I also know that texting your boss to say you won’t make it in because even though you thought you were over the trots, you had just shit your pants while bending over to help your son tie his shoe is stupid.  But does that stop me from doing these things?

No.

In my defense, I VERY RARELY smoke. In fact, I have ¾ of a pack of cigarettes that’s been in my hiding spot in a mug on top of the fridge for about 6 months.  It’s kind of like how I still sleep in the same bed as my husband even though we’ve already had 2 kids and we don’t necessarily want any more.  (“We don’t do it for fun, Doc,” I told my doctor when he and I disagreed on my second son’s due date. “We do it for a reason. I know exactly when this kid is due.”  Lucky for me, my doctor was stubborn and stuck with his due date, which was 2 weeks before mine.  Then by the time my real due date came around, my doc thought I was two weeks overdue and induced even though my son actually wasn’t late at all.  I WIN.)

Basically what I’m saying is, do I need to have any more sex with my husband?  No.  But I keep him around just in case I get a hankering.

Do I need to smoke? No.  But I keep ciggies around just in case I get a hankering during a night on the town with the girls.

Then there was the time my younger son paused one morning as he was buckling his seat belt just before the drive to school.  “Mom?”

“Yeah, buddy.”

“Do you think God has plain cheeseburgers—with only cheese on them—in Heaven?”

I nodded in understanding, glancing back at him in the rearview mirror.  “Oh, buddy, I totally know how you feel. More than once I’ve asked myself if God has rum and diet Coke in Heaven because they say Heaven is perfect and everything a person has ever dreamed of…but if there’s no rum and diet Coke, that can’t be the case, right?”

“Right,” he agreed.

“So if I were a betting woman—which I’m not because I always lose, but if I was, I would say yes.  A thousand times YES. God DOES have rum and diet Coke in Heaven.”

“He was asking about plain cheeseburgers, Mom,” my older son reminded me.

“That too,” I replied with a definitive nod of my head.