How Long Is Eternity?

Lately, I’ve been feeling kind of strange. Getting older is part of it. When you actually take a look at the end of your life, it’s sobering. It has been for me. You realize that this world is only temporary.

Imagine if you lived for 80 years but eternity was a billion years times a billion years times a billion years. A lifetime really is just a drop in the bucket. The first time I heard that term, I was about 16 years old. Me and my mom were moving into the apartment building.

It was one of those old two-story homes with lots of big rooms, only this old lady who owned it, had it chopped up into several one-bedroom apartments. I love these old apartment buildings like that. I lived in so many during my lifetime. The large wooden windows and ornate molding, the hardwood floors—wow! I loved those old homes like that.

Anyway, back to my story. My mother divorced my father when I was sixteen. I stayed with my dad for a while but it quickly got out of hand. My father and two brothers expected me to do all the cleaning and cooking and I was still in high school. So I asked my mom if I could move in with her and she said yes. My sister, Ann, moved from Houston. She moved in with us too. Three amigos! Three wild girls out on their own.

That’s how it felt. Mom was dating. My sister was dating. I was confused about how my life would go moving forward because I’d always lived in a home with my mother, father and two brothers and now I never saw my dad anymore. Plus, I was living with my sister, who I’d always idolized.

She was a good dancer. She had a quirky sense of humor. She was the type of person who would come to rescue you night or day—all you had to do was call her. I loved her so. Her name was La Queta Ann Gregory. She died at the age of 38 mixing some drugs that shouldn’t have gone together.

Her daughter does not like it when I say that Ann’s death was a suicide. She gets angry with me about that. But we all know how many times Ann tried to overdose before she actually died. Maybe you can only get your stomach pumped out so many times before it becomes fatal. Let’s say that’s how she died.

Anyway, I miss her. She was part native American and I loved her dearly. She was the only person in the whole world who saw me exactly the way I am, but still loved me.

Every human needs at least one other person who sees them exactly as they are but still loves them.