Dear Diary,
Yesterday was one of the days that Jimmy has to go to the hospital, and he’s always kind of beat after that, so I didn’t go to visit him today. Instead I stayed up in my tree house with the telescope for a couple of hours, but I didn’t see much that was new. I can’t fly very well when Jimmy’s not with me.
I’m sad today. This morning a big moving van came down our street and stopped in front of Mr. Harding’s house, and some men carried out all of his furniture and stuff. I asked Mom about it, and she called up the hospital and found out that he died last week.
“Try not to be too upset,” Mom said. “You should remember that he had a very long life, and a useful one, too. He was a veterinarian for years and years, and he helped many animals to get well. He helped you save your kittens. And I’m very proud of you for being his friend, and for helping him when he was sick.”
I know Mom is right, but I can’t help feeling sad. Everything around me seems to be dying. Maggie and my elm tree and Smudgie, and now Mr. Harding. And…
No! I’m not going to write that! Because Jimmy isn’t going to die! He’s going to get better, and he’s going to fly all over Canada and the United States and Mexico and South America and Europe and Asia and the moon!
That’s what he told me, and I believe it.
After supper I asked Mom if I could stay up late and go outside after dark. I wanted to look at the moon through the telescope so I could see where Jimmy is going to land someday. But the most amazing thing I saw wasn’t the moon, but all the stars in the sky, hundreds and thousands and millions and billions of them. I learned in school that they’re too far away for us ever to visit them, ’cause it would take lots of lifetimes to get there.
Then I remembered that Reverend Davis said the stars are where Heaven is, and I tried to imagine that Mr. Harding was up there somewhere. And Maggie and Smudgie, too, even though Reverend Davis says that Heaven is only for people, except that he has to be wrong because Heaven is supposed to be a perfect place where everybody is happy all the time, and how could I be happy anywhere if I didn’t have Maggie and Smudgie there with me? And an elm tree to climb so I could see all over everything.
I thought about Mr. Harding for a while, and about Jimmy being sick, and then I climbed down and went in the house and found Dad in his office, where he was working on his courses for the fall term at the university.
Dad leaned back from the computer and swivelled around. “Isn’t it time you were in bed?”
“Can I ask you a question?” I said.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I’ve been thinking about why Jimmy is sick. Reverend Davis says God made the whole world and everything in it, especially us, and that everything that happens is God’s will. So does that mean he made Jimmy get born with his spina bifida? And if Jimmy dies, is it because God wants him to?”
“Hanna, I’m not the person you should be asking about this,” Dad said.
“Is that because you don’t believe in God or Heaven?”
“I don’t believe, and I don’t not believe. I think I told you before, no one really knows for sure whether there’s a God, or if Heaven exists.”
“But what do you think?”
Dad had a really strange look on his face right about then. It looked like he was trying to make up his mind whether to tell me something. “Sit down for a minute,” he said, and I reached for the chair from Mom’s desk and pulled it over close to him. “I’m sure Reverend Davis believes all the things he says about God,” Dad said, “and you should respect him and listen to him, because he’s a good man who tries very hard to help people. But you don’t have to believe everything he says. You should make up your own mind about some things.”
“Well, I think he’s wrong,” I said, “just like he’s wrong about animals not going to Heaven, because why would God make some people healthy and other people sick? That would mean that God is cruel, but the Bible says he cares about us. And Reverend Davis says that if we pray to God, he’ll look after us and give us what we want. If that’s true, then if I pray really hard, he’ll make Jimmy get well, right?”
That part just sort of came out. I didn’t know that was what I was thinking about until I said it.
“Maybe,” Dad said.
“But you don’t think so,” I said. “I can tell. So who am I supposed to believe?”
“I don’t believe God made Jimmy sick in the first place, and if you pray to Him, and if Jimmy doesn’t get better, it isn’t because God wants him to die. I just don’t believe the world works that way. No one knows why some people get sick and others don’t. It just happens, and it’s very sad, and that’s why all the doctors and nurses try so hard to help as many people as they can. So I think it’s all right if you pray for Jimmy to get well, but you should do more than that. You should continue to be his friend, and visit him whenever Mr. and Mrs. Morris say it’s all right, so that he’ll know someone cares about him. That’s the most important thing you can do to help him.”
“I wish I could do something else,” I said.
“Maybe you can,” Dad said, “when you’re older.”
I wonder what he meant by that?