Can't Wait to Get to Heaven (15 page)

Raymond said, “No, you two go on and enjoy yourselves. I’m sure you have a lot more girl talk to catch up with. See you later.”

Elner stood up to leave, and as she headed out the door, she turned and said, “Oh, I forgot to ask one thing. What about prayer…does that work?”

“Of course!” he said. “We want you to have anything you want, and if what you are praying for is not bad for you in the long run, we do our best.”

Elner nodded. “You can’t ask for more than that,” she said. “Well, so long, Raymond. I enjoyed our little chat.”

“Me too,” he called back.

Mrs. Franks, an Old Friend

12:01
PM

M
rs. Louise Franks had been a neighbor of Elner’s when Elner had still lived out on the farm, and they had spent a lot of time visiting back and forth with each other over the years, cooking recipes they had heard on the
Neighbor Dorothy
radio show. After Elner’s husband, Will Shimfissle, had died, and before Elner moved to town, they had seen each other almost every day. Louise still ran a ten-acre farm and today had had a busy morning tending to all the usual chores. It was around noontime when she ran into the small convenience store at the gas station to pick up a pack of marshmallows for her daughter, Polly, who was allowed one bag of marshmallows a week. And while she was there, she’d grabbed a six-pack of caffeine-free Diet Coke and a bottle of Windex as well. As the clerk scanned the Diet Cokes, he said, “Were you listening to Bud and Jay this morning, Mrs. Franks?”

“No, I missed it today. Why?”

“They said that Mrs. Shimfissle died.”

Mrs. Franks was stunned, she had just talked to Elner on the phone yesterday about the Easter egg hunt.

“What?”

“Yeah, Bud said she died this morning in the hospital in Kansas City. Didn’t you know her pretty well?”

Mrs. Franks suddenly felt herself getting dizzy and sweaty.

“Yes, I did.”

The clerk saw the stricken look on her face and said, “I’m sorry, I figured you might have heard by now.”

“No. I hadn’t heard.” Then Mrs. Franks turned around and walked out the door.

The clerk called after her, “Hey…you left your things here.

“Well, I guess she didn’t want them,” he mumbled to himself.

Mrs. Franks drove out of the parking lot in a daze and about a block later pulled over and parked.

She sat there thinking about what the clerk had asked so matter-of-factly. “Didn’t you know her pretty well?”

Pretty well? Even the words “She was the best friend I ever had” would have been inadequate. No one would, or could, ever know what Elner had done for Mrs. Franks and her daughter. Then her thoughts and concerns went immediately to her daughter, Polly, who was now at day care waiting for Mrs. Franks to come pick her up. How would she ever be able to explain to Polly that Mrs. Shimfissle had died? Polly loved Mrs. Shimfissle; she had been the only other person in the world whom she would spend the night with without crying and screaming for her mother. Every year, Mrs. Franks had dressed her daughter up in her new outfit and driven her to town for Elner’s big Easter egg hunt. Other than Christmas and having her picture made with Santa Claus, Easter was Polly’s favorite day of the year. She loved playing with the other children, and no matter what eggs she found in the yard, Elner always made a big fuss over it, gave her the biggest prize. One year her prize was a jeweled silver cowgirl belt with two cap guns that she still loved to play with to this day.

Poor Polly, even though she was now forty-two years old, she was severely retarded and had the mind of a six-year-old; she would never be able to understand why Mrs. Shimfissle would not be there anymore, or where she had gone. “I won’t tell her today,” she thought. “I’ll just give her a bag of marshmallows and let her be happy, for just a little while longer.” She was halfway home when she realized she had left her groceries on the counter and had to turn around and go back and still could hardly believe it. Elner Shimfissle dead. Elner, the bravest and purest soul she had ever known. Gone. “Where is she now?” she wondered.

As Louise drove along, she thought that if there was such a thing as heaven, then surely Elner had to be there right now.

What a Surprise, Huh?

A
s they walked down the hall, Dorothy said, “We could have our cake in the dining room or out on the front porch. Which would you prefer?”

Elner said, “Let’s have it on the porch.”

“Oh, good, it’s such a pretty day, I was hoping you would say that.” As Elner followed Dorothy, she suddenly heard a noise coming from the living room where Dorothy used to broadcast her show, and realized the noise was someone playing “You Are My Sunshine” on the tuba. “That sounds like Ernest Koonitz,” she said.

Dorothy said, “It is. Why don’t you go say hello to him while I get the cake. I know he’d love to see you.”

Elner walked by and poked her head into the room, and there he was, bad hairpiece and all, wearing that same black and white checked suit he always wore, with the red bow tie. “Hello, Ernest! It’s Elner Shimfissle.”

He looked up and seemed thrilled to see her. “Hello! When did you get here?” He walked over and shook her hand through the tuba.

“Just a little while ago. I got stung by wasps and fell out of a tree, so please excuse the robe. How about yourself?”

“I was on my way to the dentist’s office when I just dropped out in the parking lot with a heart attack. It was good timing too, I was just about to fork over a fortune for new dentures.”

“Ahh…well…how are you, Ernest?”

“Oh, I’m just fine now. I had been sick, but I’ve never felt better in my whole life. This is the first time I’ve been able to play in years. Isn’t this just the best place?…I’m meeting with John Philip Sousa, the great bandmaster himself, in just a few minutes, he’s agreed to come over and give me some lessons. Isn’t that great?”

“Yes, it is. I guess it’s never too late to learn, even after you’re dead.”

He looked around. “And isn’t it good to see the old house again. When they tore it down, I thought it was gone forever. I thought when I died I was going to be gone forever too, but here I am. What a surprise, huh?”

“A pleasant surprise, and weren’t those crystal stairs just beautiful?”

He looked at her blankly. “What crystal stairs?”

Elner realized he must not have come that way, and asked, “How did you get up here?”

“I came up in a brand-new Cadillac convertible with heated seats!”

“Ahh, well…”

“Have you seen everybody yet?”

“No, not yet, just Ida so far, but I think I’m still in the checking-in part. If I pass that, then I think I’ll get to go on and see everybody else, and I can’t wait to see my husband, Will, again.”

Elner heard the front door slam, and said, “Well, I better go. I just wanted to say hey…and good luck with your lesson.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you later. Have fun.”

“Oh, I will,” she said. As Elner headed on out to the front porch, she chuckled to herself. Ernest had never struck her as being a particularly enthusiastic person before, but he seemed just tickled to death to be dead. Who would have ever believed it?

A Comforting Message

A
bout an hour later, Macky was sitting with Norma, holding her hand trying to think of things to say to help, but after a while he was more or less at a loss for words and was very happy to see Norma’s Unity minister, Susie Hill, coming down the hall. When Norma looked up and saw her she burst into tears.

“Oh, Susie, she’s gone. I’ve lost Aunt Elner.”

The two women hugged. “I came as soon as I heard.”

Norma said, “I’m so glad you’re here, but how did you know, we haven’t called anybody at home yet?”

“Irene Goodnight called me and told me.”

“She did?” said a teary-eyed Norma. “How did she find out?”

“I think somebody from the hospital called Ruby.”

“I guess I should go and try to call people and let them know.”

Susie said, “It’s already been done, everybody knows and they all send you their love. Ruby and Tot said to tell you that they were taking care of Elner’s house, and for you not to worry about a thing.”

“Oh, I forgot about the house. I’m sure it was standing wide open. She never locked her doors.” Norma choked up again. “All this time I was worried about her being robbed and murdered in her bed, I never dreamed it would be wasps!” She wailed and fell apart again.

“I know, it’s a terrible loss, Norma, and I know you are going to miss her,” said Susie, “but at least we know she’s gone to a better place.”

“Oh, Susie, do you think so?” said Norma hopefully.

“Yes, I am sure that right now she is happy and at peace.”

Macky took this time to excuse himself and phone work and let them know he would not be coming back in for a few days. Although he certainly didn’t believe it, if it helped Norma to think that Aunt Elner was in heaven, fine. Let her. He had stopped believing in any of that pie-in-the-sky stuff years ago. He had been in the army and had seen men blown up, right beside him. He had seen far too much to have much faith in anything, other than the here and now. It would be nice to think that Elner was in some sort of heaven, but unfortunately, he knew better.

Eating Cake

A
little while later, when Dorothy and Elner were outside on the front porch having their coffee and cake, Elner sat looking out, amazed at the sight before her. While she had been inside talking to Ernest, the sky had turned an exquisite shade of aqua, a color Elner had never seen before in her life, and the entire front yard was filled with flocks of beautiful pink flamingos. Large blue swans with bright yellow eyes swam around in a pond that wound all around the house, while hundreds of tiny multicolored birds flew overhead. Elner said, “Don’t you just love birds?”

“I do.”

Elner said, “By the way, I was surprised to hear that Ernest came up in a Cadillac.”

“We like to make the trip as pleasant as possible. Your sister came up on the
Queen Elizabeth,
in a first-class cabin.”

“Of course,” said Elner, laughing. “I’ll bet Macky will come up in that motorboat he just loves to fish in.”

“Maybe so,” she said, pouring Elner more coffee. “Raymond and I say whatever you want, you get, and everybody is different, some people like sailboats, some prefer private jets. We had a couple come in last week on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.”

“Why did I get to come up in that elevator that went every which a way?”

“We know you loved to ride the Loop de Loop at the fair.”

Elner laughed. “That’s true. I tell you, Dorothy, you and Raymond certainly go out of your way to make dying a real nice experience.”

“We try.”

“Shoot, if more people knew how pleasant it was up here, they would be dropping like flies.”

Dorothy laughed. “Well, we don’t want people to come up before they are ready, but it’s certainly nothing to be afraid of.”

“No. It certainly isn’t.”

Then Dorothy pointed over to where bright deep purple wisteria and snow white baby roses were cascading over the side fence. “Look. It’s so pretty this time of year, isn’t it?”

“It is, especially here, I feel like I’m sitting in a picture inside a magazine,” said Elner as she started on her second piece of cake. After she took the first bite, she looked over and remarked, “Dorothy, I swear I haven’t had good homemade cake like this since you died. I don’t know how you get it to turn out so light and fluffy, mine are never near this good.”

“Do you still have the recipe I gave out over the radio?”

“Yes, it’s in your cookbook, and I follow it to a T, but it never turns out like yours.”

“Next time, try preheating the oven to three seventy-five, it could be your oven is not as hot as it should be, that happens sometimes.”

“I will, and thanks for the tip.” Elner looked over at her. “And by the way, I just loved meeting Raymond, he seems like a really nice person.”

“Oh, he is,” said Dorothy, pouring herself another cup of coffee. “He is the sweetest thing and he cares so much.”

“That’s the impression I got.”

“It just breaks his heart when people don’t get along.”

“I can imagine it would.”

“Raymond thinks it’s all the radicals and fanatics that cause most of the trouble. He says they take themselves far too seriously, get themselves and everybody else all worked up in a frenzy.”

“He could be right, Dorothy. Come to think of it, your average fanatic doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor, does he?”

“No,” she said, “not a laugh in the bunch, I’m afraid. And you can’t be happy and in a rage at the same time.”

“No, you sure can’t.”

“But I am beginning to suspect that it could be something else as well.”

Dorothy glanced over at the front door to make sure Raymond wasn’t coming out, and whispered, “I wonder if Raymond made a slight mistake with the hormone mix; gave the men a little too much testosterone? Think about it, Elner…it’s the men who start most of the wars. Not us.”

“That’s a good point,” Elner said, taking another bite of her cake.

Dorothy sighed. “But bless his heart, he did the best he could, and thank heavens, he let me help, because everything he had done—the oceans, the trees, everything—was a muddy gray.”

“You don’t mean it?”

Dorothy nodded. “I do, he’s as color-blind as they come; to this day, I have to pick out his socks or else he winds up with one blue one and one brown one.”

“I’m glad you caught it in time,” said Elner. “It sure would have been a dull old place if we hadn’t had any color.”

“Thank you, but you know, Elner,” she said thoughtfully, “speaking of color, I wonder if I didn’t make a mistake.”

“How so, honey?”

“With people? I wonder if I shouldn’t have made them all one color? I had no idea it would cause so much trouble, and I just feel terrible about it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Dorothy, things are changing in that department. My niece Linda just adopted a Chinese baby and she’s a real pretty color, everybody says so.”

“Well, I’d like to think it’s getting better, and I must say, even with all the problems, Raymond is very optimistic about the future.”

“I know he is, and after talking to him, I feel a whole lot better,” said Elner. “And I felt pretty good before.”

Just then Raymond came out onto the porch and pointed to his watch. “Ladies, I hate to break this up, but Elner has to get on back.”

Dorothy looked at her watch. “Oh, dear. I was having such a good time, I’ve kept you far too long.”

Elner was totally surprised. “Am I not staying?”

“No,” said Raymond, “as much as we would love to keep you, unfortunately, we have to send you back home.”

“You mean, I’m not going to get to see Will?”

“No, honey, not this time,” said Dorothy.

Elner slowly put her coffee cup down on the table. “Well…I’m very disappointed, of course. I sure wanted to see Will. But mine is not to question, I guess. Anyhow, it was sure nice being with you again, Dorothy, and visiting with you, Raymond.”

“Wonderful to see you too, dear,” he said.

Dorothy wrapped a piece of cake in a napkin. “Here, honey, take this with you.”

Elner said, “Are you sure you don’t want it for later?”

“No, you take it, I have half a cake left in the kitchen that we’ll probably never finish.”

“All right, then,” she said, standing up and putting the cake into her pocket. “You know I’ll enjoy it.” She looked at both of them. “Is there anything I can do for you? Any messages you want me to take back?”

Raymond thought for a second, then said, “You could tell them that things are not really as bad as they seem, more people are getting educated every day, more women are voting, new technology is coming, new medical discoveries—”

“Wait a minute, hold it, Raymond,” said Elner, looking around for a pencil. “Shouldn’t I be writing all this down?”

“No, that’s all right,” he said. “Just tell them we love them, we’re pulling for them, and to hang in there, because good things are just around the corner. Anything else, Dorothy?”

Dorothy said, “You might want to remind them that life is what they make it, to smile, and the world is sunny, and it’s up to them.”

“All right,” said Elner, trying to remember it all. “Good things are coming, and life is what you make it, anything else?”

Dorothy looked over at Raymond, and he shook his head. “No, I think that’s basically it.” Suddenly Elner felt her robe filling up with warm air and expanding all around her; then she slowly began to rise up off the floor and gently float off the porch, on out into the yard like a big hot air balloon. As she rose higher in the air, she looked down to see Raymond and Dorothy standing in the yard surrounded by pink flamingos, and blue swans, who were all smiling and waving good-bye to her. “Good-bye, Elner!” they said. “Well, bye-bye…thanks for the cake,” she called back, as she floated higher and higher right over the top of the Elmwood Springs water tank and on over toward Kansas City.