The soul “judges itself by choosing, in accord with the character formed during its life on earth, which sort of an afterlife it shall have.”
–Aldous Huxley
The old woman stood before the guarding angel, so many tears welling in her eyes that she could not read the letters on the gates. While she had always tried to live a good life, the regret that consumed her sent a shiver down her spine. At last, trembling, she managed to ask the angel her question.
“Am I at the gates of heaven—or of hell?” she whispered.
“Tell me first,” the angel replied. “Why are you crying?”
The old woman stopped to think, and into her mind flooded images of all that she had left behind. Not only the old man, whom she’d loved so deeply for over sixty years, but the memories of a lifetime full of simple joys and unavoidable losses.
Her parents, young and full of life, pushing her proudly through the streets in a brand-new stroller. Childhood friends building castles in the sand. High-school proms, first boyfriends and break-ups, college, true love and a backyard wedding. There were their own babies and then their grandbabies—first steps, names in school programs, graduations, leaving home the last time, children no more.
Along the way, all the emotions that had consumed her—fear of the future, anger for what could not be helped, moments of transcendence, of jealousy, of bitter sorrows and avoidable misunderstandings—all turned to dust by the churning wheels of time.
There had been new houses, new cities, new jobs—some left out of choice, some not. Memorable meals and ecstatic music. There had been falling down and starting over again. Books. Lots of books. And then, too, there was her little dog, raised from a pup and grown old, carried heavy in her arms to the vet’s office one last time. And finally, there was the gradual loss of her own physical vitality and the culminating moment of her death.
Witnessing all, the angel finally replied, “Only one who has loved so greatly can feel such great pain. You stand here before the gate to heaven or to hell. And so it is before I answer your question that you must answer one more for me. Have you been blessed or have you been cursed?”
So surprised was she by the angel’s words that her eyes suddenly cleared. Had she been blessed or had she been cursed? She stood still at the gates and pondered the angel’s words.
“If it were a curse,” she finally declared, “I would give none of it back.”
With that, her fear departed, leaving in its wake only the bittersweet taste of love. Had she given her life her very best? She no longer needed to read the word above the gates to determine her destiny. As below, so above. The angel took her by the hand and together they walked through the gates swung wide open. Upon each of their cheeks, a tear.
–Carol Orsborn, adapted from my Random House book The Art of Resilience (1997). Inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Zen stories and Jewish mysticism.
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With this last blog of the year, I begin my annual winter break from blogging. Meanwhile, be on the lookout for the Sixth Annual Best Content of the Year Edition of Fierce with Age out later this week. May you have a blessed holiday season! And I look forward to meeting up with you here again on the other side of the new year: older, wiser, fiercer.
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