How Does This Work

 

 

            Cherry was growing up around a lot of life and death. Her father, Ralph, and her brother Twigg, both hunted and fished. She observed that deer, turkeys, grouse, trout, or whichever animal they were fortunate enough to catch ended up most sincerely dead.
            She was aware that the flesh that was their food, often, when the hide was still on it looked quite a lot like her own, roughly. She ran her fingers through her own light blond coat. She poked at her own legs, feeling the muscle and bone, and pinched up her skin. There was a resemblance.
            Ramona was working on a haunch of venison, skinning it, getting ready to put it on the fire. It would take a long time to cook over the open fire. So, she was getting started while it was still early in the day.
            Cherry sat down on the log nearest her mother.
            “That deer is dead,” said Cherry.
            Ramona laid her knife down and rinsed her hands in the bucket of river water she kept handy while preparing food. She sat down by Cherry, and said, “Yes. Why do you ask?”
            “That deer had hair and bones with meat on them. So do I, Mama,” said Cherry.
            “In a way, you do, Cherry,” said Ramona. “But you’re different. Inside, in your heart you are alive in a way that deer wasn’t alive.”
            “How does that work?” wondered Cherry.
            “Try thinking of this, Honey. In this world the Maker of All built for us to live in, there is air and water and land and everything our bodies need to live. It’s the same for the animals, so our bodies are alike in lots of ways. Even fish, though they have to breath under water.”
            “OK, Mama. I understand that. But if the animals can be dead, can you be dead or Daddy, or can I be dead?” said Cherry earnestly, getting around to her real question.
            “Dear Heart, the part of you that is like all those animals can be dead. Usually, after a long busy life that part gets kind of worn out and it dies. But, the inside part of you, the part the animals don’t have in the same way, can’t die. It’s not part of the world that we see around us every day. It belongs to another world,” said Ramona, hoping that she wasn’t confusing the child.
            “What other world does it belong to,” said Cherry.
            “It’s a world that never ends and there is no death. It’s made of love and being, and your thoughts. Those things never die because they aren’t made of the stuff in the world which grows, and changes and wears out and ends. People call it Heaven, because everybody has a hard time telling about it, because we are in this world and all of our life, we only know this world. It’s so different,” said Ramona. “All of our words are from here. It’s a different language, I think.”
            “But Blue and Bob and Berry have love too,” said Cherry. “I know they do!”
            “Yes, they do. I don’t know everything, Cherry. Maybe the animals that have love are part of that life that never ends. I bet they are!” said Ramona.
            “OK, Mama,” said Cherry. She was content then, and went off to play with Blue, the white wolf pup.
            Ramona picked up her knife and went back to work on the venison. Just as she did, Ralph came home with a load of dead branches, deadfall and such in his arms. He stacked it conveniently to the fire circle stones and said, “How are you this morning, Mona? Anything interesting going on?”
            “Yeah. I’ve been talking with Cherry,” said she.
            “Oh, big stuff? Anything important?” he asked.
            “Well, yeah. It started with death and ended up with the endless, eternal unseen world. I don’t know if I said the right things. I was trying to speak to her understanding without telling her things that aren’t real.”
            “What got her going on that?” the concerned father asked.
            “She was noticing that this part of a deer here is dead. Then she started comparing it to her own body, and there we went!” said Ramona.
            “I’m sure you did well. You do everything well, Firekeeper,” said Ralph most fondly.
            He broke up some of the firewood. Then he carefully fed the fire with some of the broken pieces. Ralph doesn’t mind standing in as a Firekeeper once in a while.
            He doesn’t have a thing to prove, not anywhere in the Great Forest.

🍒