Only once did I get to ask my dad what happens after you die. By now, he knows. Back then he would've been guessing.
Side by side in my bunk bed, we faced the stick-on, glow-in-the-dark stars just a couple feet above us. I was 10 or so.
At the time, I had a simple picture of heaven. The people were all spread out on a big white plane under a uniformly blue sky, kind of like they were walking on an endless sheet of printer paper. My grandma was one of the only people there for some reason, even though she was (and is) alive. I guess I didn't know who else to put there.
I asked my dad: did it all go on forever? That's what I was really curious about. How people spent their time when they never ran out of it.
He was on his back, looking up at the ceiling right next to me.
I don't know, he said. I remember how small he looked when he tried to answer me. Up until that point I assumed that he had all the answers.
I went on: do people get old up there? What happens to me if I go to heaven as a kid, like right now? Do I stay a kid forever? I could have kept going. Does grandma stay old forever? Should I try to die at just the right age? And is Max (family dog) gonna be there? Because I already put him (also still alive) next to grandma.
He fumbled a little. I think he brought up the Torah. But whatever he said, and I don't remember much of his answer, I could see he was reassuring himself as much as he was to me.
It was the first time I really saw my dad as a human, like me. It was also the first time I felt a deep sense of existential unease about the fact that I was gonna die, and no one really knew what that was like, or what came after.
Then, only a few years after that, he found out. He was the first and last person I ever really asked these questions to.
At around 14, the implications of "heaven going on forever" led to my first panic attack. It was the first of many.
As far as I can tell, life after death can look like a limited number of possibilities, all of which are horrifying. Heaven is horrifying because it goes on forever. Disappearing entirely is horrifying. Reincarnation is the most horrifying of all — repeatedly getting recycled over and over forever without even knowing it.
Maybe asking "what happens when you die" is a kind of semantic mistake, like asking "what color is the shirt I'm not wearing?" Once you're dead, there's no one for anything to happen to. But does that put me at ease? I'm not sure.
Now that I'm older and closer to the age my dad was when we had that conversation, I think time to time about what I will say to my children when they ask me that question.
Would I tell them the closest thing we have to heaven is actually this moment, right now, side by side under the phosphorescent stars?