There Are No Wheelchairs In Heaven
Little Catherine had been laying in her bed crying since she got home some time ago. She was only 4, but she somehow grasped the concept of losing a loved one. She was waken up this morning by the sound of her mother crying. She walked out of her room and into the kitchen, seeing her father holding her mother.
“Whats wrong wit’ mommy?” she asked.
Catherine loved her mom a lot; she hated seeing her cry.
“Daddy, whats wrong wit’ mom?”
“Come here Cat, I need to talk to you”
Young Cat walked over to her dad, puzzled and confused.
“What is it daddy? What is it?”
“Catherine, your grandma is sick. She isn’t feeling very well at all.
We’re going to go see her soon.”
“Whats wrong wit’ her daddy? Is she gunna be okay?”
“When we go see her, I want you to give her the biggest hug and the biggest kiss in the world, and I want you to tell her you love her.
I know she would like that sweetie.”
“Oo-okay daddy, I- I will.” Cat said, confused at what was happening.
Grandma had a heart attack not too long ago. She had recovered from it, but recently she has started to fade day by day.
She had been stuck in a wheelchair to get around. She always said she hated wheelchairs, from childhood, when she broke her leg and was put in a wheel chair, until now. She was a very Godly woman, through her younger years and all the way through her life. Even when she was a teenager, she would always talk about how heaven would be such a nice place.
“A place without wheelchairs is the place I wanna go!” she would always say.
Catherine’s mother, Jane, had been taking care of her, running back and forth from house to house. Jane hadn’t had a good night sleep since her mother’s heart attack 3 months ago.
Her husband Josh got another job on top of his full time job to try and pay for the extra bill they had taken on.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
“Her room is…”
The nurse quickly checks her chart.
“Her room is on the left at the end of the hallway here. Just to let you know, shes coming in and out of consciousness, so it might be hard to talk to her.”
“Thank you ma’am,” Jane replied.
Jane, Josh, and Catherine walk to her room and stand at the doorway for a second or two.
Grandma is laying in bed, eyes closed, hooked up to an oxygen machine. She looks peaceful. The sun coming through the blinds in the room.
The sun. How she loved the sun. She would spend hours and hours sitting out in the sun, reading one of her novels, diving in to the life of a detective or a criminal gone good. She always loved books with happy endings.
“Oh mom…” Jane whispers as she runs to her mother.
“Oh mom… Please… Talk to me”
No reply.
“She must be sleeping, honey” Josh said with a sigh.
“Grandma!” Little Cat screamed.
She ran over to her grandmother, but her mom said,
“Quieter Cat, she might be resting.”
Grandma slowly opened her eyes and looked over and saw Cat. The child’s eyes sparkled as she saw that her grandma was awake.
“Hi honey,” Grandma said, as she strained just to talk.
She lifted up her arm slightly and Cat held her hand.
Cat looked up at her, smiling like she always did. That young girl’s smile could light up a whole town.
“I love you Grandma, I love you,” wrapping her arms around her and giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“I love you too sweetie. Don’t you worry about me.”
Grandma looks over at the couple.
“At least I’m not in a stinking wheelchair anymore.”
Laughs go around the entire room, slowly stopping and ending with silence again.
Cat sits down next to her grandma on the bed, holding her hand the whole time they were there.
Her parents talk to Grandma, asking about how she is, what they could do to make her comfortable. They sat there for a few hours just being there, spending time with her. She would go in and out of consciousness every few minutes, but Cat didn’t notice. All she cared about was spending time with Grandma. Things started getting quieter and quieter.
Flat line.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Catherine sits on her bed crying and crying.
Josh and Jane sit down next to her and just wrap their arms around her.
“Shes in a better place now. She was in a lot of pain, she was very sick. She isn’t in pain any more. She’s sitting up with Jesus in Heaven.”
Cat continues to cry, almost as she didn’t even hear her parents speak.
It soon grew into night time and like all children, she eventually fell asleep.
Jane sits in the living room, silently weeping, trying to cover her face by pretending to read a book. Josh is in bed, staring at the ceiling. He doesn’t know what to do. What to say. His mind is blank. Empty. But yet he cant fall asleep. No one could sleep.
Except Catherine.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
Asleep in her bed, Catherine experienced something of a small miracle in the form of a dream.
Grandma. She saw Grandma.
She ran up to her, hugging and kissing her, smiling and laughing like she never had before
“What happened Grandma?”
“Sweetie, I feel better than I have since… Since a long time ago.
Look at me Sweetie. There’s no hospital beds here. No bad things. Only good things.
Only good things.”
Catherine hugged her and kissed her and said I Love you.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
“Mommy! Daddy!”
Josh and Jane come running to Cat, thinking something had happened.
“What is it Catherine? Are you okay?” Jane said in fear.
“I saw Grandma! I saw Grandma!”
“What do you mean you saw Grandma?” Josh asked.
“I saw Grandma in my dream! I hugged her and kissed her and said that we all missed her.”
Little Catherine jumps up into Jane’s arms, as Jane quickly catches her.
“Grandma told me to tell you that everything is okay. That she loves us, but she wouldn’t want to come back. She said its perfect where she is. No more being sick. No more pain. Its the place she always wanted to be.”
Josh and Jane both hug and kiss Cat. Jane is crying, but a smile is peeking through as she cries.
“Is that what Grandma said honey? That she loves it there?” Jane said, wiping her tears away
“Yeah! She said its beyond anything she’s ever seen! Oh and Mommy, She said one more thing,” Cat said.
“What did she say?” Jane asked as she started to smile more.
Little Catherine looked up at her mom with her sparkling eyes.
“There are no wheelchairs in Heaven.”
