The Afterlife
No One Understands the After Life
The concept of the after life is something no one can understand.
People preach about it like they’ve got a brochure. Gold streets. Pearly gates. Fire and brimstone. But nobody knows. We’re all just guessing with our eyes closed.
I remember being in a cell. Concrete. Steel door. Alone.
And my whole life flashed before my eyes.
It was like everything that I have ever done flashed. Not just the big things. The small ones. The time I stole candy. The time I held a friend while she cried. The words I said to my father.
I remember saying my father was dead to me. I said this before he died. It was anger talking. Hurt talking. And in that cell, I saw his face. I saw the weight of those words. I saw Rev. Cecil Williams too — and he had not died yet. But I saw him like he was already on the other side, waiting.
Time folded in there. Past, present, future all running together like water.
When I got out, I got baptized for the 100th time again.
I have been baptized so many times that I feel holy. Dunked in every church that would have me. Water over my head like I was trying to wash off the cell, the past, the things I said to my father. Some people do drugs. I do baptism.
But the thing constantly keeps going on and our souls live on.
I believe that.
Good souls continue and bad souls die. I don’t mean “die” like disappear. I mean die inside. Empty. No light. No growth. Just a shadow walking around in a body. I’ve seen it. In the house. On the street. In the mirror some mornings.
I just think the concept of heaven is different than man has portrayed.
Man sells heaven like it’s real estate. Like you can buy a mansion with tithes. Like it’s a gated community with your name on the mailbox.
But I think heaven is presence. It’s being fully known and still fully loved. It’s that moment in the cell when everything flashed — except there’s no fear. No shame. Just truth. And the truth sets you free or it burns you up.
The thing is, man — rich or poor — die alone and empty.
No matter what, you can’t take anything with you.
Not the house. Not the car. Not the degrees. Not the grudges. Not even the baptisms.
You go out the same way you came in: naked. Holding nothing but your soul.
So I try to live like that cell taught me. Say what you mean. Unsay what you don’t. Love people before they’re gone. Get baptized if you need to, but know the water isn’t magic. The change is.
Rev. Cecil is gone now. My father is gone now. I’m still here.
And when my time comes, I don’t want gold streets.
I just want to be light.
I want my soul to continue.
Because good souls do.
And nobody — not a preacher, not a professor, not a pope — really understands how.
We just feel it.
And that’s enough.
