Have a Little Faith - Mitch Albom [55]
The Reb’s cemetery plot, I learned, was closer to his birthplace in New York, where his mother and father were buried. His daughter, Rinah, was buried there, too. When the time came, the three generations would be united, at least in the earth and, if his faith held true, somewhere else as well.
Do you think you’ll see Rinah again? I asked.
“Yes, I do.”
But she was just a child.
“Up there,” he whispered, “time doesn’t matter.”
The Reb once gave a sermon in which heaven and hell were shown to a man. In hell, people sat around a banquet table, full of exquisite meats and delicacies. But their arms were locked in front of them, unable to partake for eternity.
“This is terrible,” the man said. “Show me heaven.”
He was taken to another room, which looked remarkably the same. Another banquet table, more meats and delicacies. The souls there also had their arms out in front of them.
The difference was, they were feeding each other.
What do you think? I asked the Reb. Is heaven like that?
“How can I say? I believe there’s something. That’s enough.”
He ran a finger across his chin. “But I admit…in some small way, I am excited by dying, because soon I will have the answer to this haunting question.”
Don’t say that.
“What?”
About dying.
“Why? It upsets you?”
Well. I mean. Nobody likes to hear that word.
I sounded like a child.
“Listen, Mitch…” His voice lowered. He crossed his arms over his sweater, which covered another plaid shirt that had no connection to his blue pants. “I know my passing will be hard on certain people. I know my family, my loved ones—you, I hope—will miss me.”
I would. More than I could tell him.
“Heavenly Father, please,” he melodized, looking up, “I am a happy man. I have helped develop many things down on earth. I’ve even developed Mitch here a little…”
He pointed at me with a long, aged finger.
“But this one, you see, he’s still asking questions. So, Lord, please, give him many more years. That way, when we are reunited, we’ll have lots to talk about.”
He smiled impishly.
“Eh?”
Thank you, I said.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
He blinked behind his glasses.
Do you really think we’ll meet again one day?
“Don’t you?”
Well, come on, I said, sheepishly. I doubt I’m going to whatever level you’re going to.
“Mitch, why do you say that?”
Because you’re a Man of God.
He looked at me gratefully.
“You’re a man of God, too,” he whispered. “Everyone is.”
The doorbell rang, breaking the mood. I heard my parents talking with Sarah in the other room. I gathered up my things. I told the Reb about the Super Bowl in a few weeks—“Ahhh, the Super Bowl,” he cooed, which was funny, because I doubt he’d ever watched one—and soon my mother and father entered the room and exchanged hellos as I zipped up my bag. Because he couldn’t easily rise from the chair, the Reb stayed seated as they spoke.
How funny when life repeats a pattern. This could have been forty years earlier, a Sunday morning, my parents picking me up from religious school, my dad driving, all of us going out to eat. The only difference was that now, instead of running from the Reb, I didn’t want to leave.
“Heading to lunch?” he asked.
Yes, I said.
“Good. Family. That’s how it should be.”
I gave him a hug. His forearms pressed tightly behind my neck, tighter than I ever remembered.
He found a song.
“Enjoy yourselves…its laaaa-ter than you think…”
I had no idea how right he was.
Church
“You need to come down here and see something.”
Henry’s voice on the phone had been excited. I got out of the car and noticed more vehicles than usual on the street, and several people going in and out of the side door—people I had not seen before. Some were black,