My brother Paul passed from this life to the next on July the 3rd at 3:45 pm in Duluth, Minnesota. Paul was born in Triumph, Minnesota on May 4th, 1953, and lived a majority of his life in this area. Due to the fact that Paul was nine years younger than me we did not spend a lot of time together until he was in his teens I guess. In the late sixties and early seventies, we spent some bike trips and camping time with each other. In 1974 Jan and I drove to California to give him a ride home from our sisters home in Oakdale. He had spent the winter working at the prison where she was employed. The route home took us to the Hearst Castle, Disney Land and the Grand Canyon. We decided then that we would return to hike to the bottom in 1975. The first part of August 1974, Paul and I were out in The Hills dirt biking when we got the call the Jan had gone into labor with our first, Rachel, we packed up and drove all night to get home only to find out it was a false alarm, Rachel did not arrive until the 18th. Spring 1975 found us arriving in a snowstorm and spending the night in the back of his Mustang before starting down the next morning on snowy trails. We spent a couple days in the canyon, had a few beers at the Phantom Ranch at the bottom, before swinging down to Mexico and back to Minnesota. Paul played fast pitch softball with Odin for several years and caught most of the time back in the days when lots of people showed up for the games and our mom worked the concession stand. We had a long history with softball because our dad both played with and managed the team in Ormsby, just a couple miles from Odin which were huge rivals back in the day. After Paul married Marcy in 1987, we went our separate ways so to speak with them moving to the Twin Cities area and then to Duluth.
This next part is going to be something I have been dreaming up on my bike trips, you have a lot of time to work on subjects while droning down the interstate. It is going to be my vision of his arrival at the next stop in his life cycle, Heaven.
Paul is riding in the passenger train of life when he arrives at his stop at 3:45 pm on July the 3rd 2022. His guardian angel says, "here's your stop Paul" and helps him off the train onto the platform at the station. When they step to the platform Paul finds that he is 25 and in perfect health again! His angel says, "well here you are, there are people to greet you, and I've got to go, there is one just being born, and they are going to need me". Paul turns and Jesus is there to welcome him home and show him off the platform and on to the welcoming committee. Mom and dad, Kathy and Howard plus several cousins too. The train carrying brothers Pete and Phil has left the station and continued on towards their stops in the future. Attached to the station is a wood shop that is fully equipped with every wood working tool known to man and in the distance, Paul can see green fields as far as the eye can see just waiting to be cultivated and harvested in their time. Beyond the corn fields far away are lights around a ball diamond that will need to be visited for sure, and maybe a nearby John Deere dealer too. It looks as if a person could spend an eternity here, and that's what he will do.
This is just my version of what a person's heaven will be like. Everyone that arrives there should have their own heaven within reason of course. This fictional tale is not biblical I'm sure, but just the author's optional reality.
