The Next Place

I was remembering Aunt Connie (an amazing lady, and an incredible aunt) and thought about this book. She went to "The Next Place" on Thursday morning. This one of my favorite books ever written. I thought I'd share with everyone else. Maybe it will comfort you, the way it comforted me.

The Next Place by Warren Hansen

The next place that I gowill be as peaceful and familiar as a sleepy summer Sunday and a sweet, untroubled mind.

And yet... it won’t be anything like any place I’ve ever been or seen... or even dreamed of in the place I leave behind.

I won’t know where I’m going and I won’t know where I’ve been, as I tumble through the always and look back toward the when.

I’ll glide beyond the rainbows. I’ll drift above the sky, I’ll fly into the wonder, without ever wondering why.

I wont remember getting there. Somehow I’ll just arrive. But I’ll know I belong there and feel much more alive than I have ever felt before.

I will be absolutely free of the things I held onto that were holding onto me.

The next place I go will be so quiet and still that the whispered song of sweet belonging will rise up to fill,

The listening sky with joyful silence, and with unheard harmonies of music made by no one playing, like a hush upon a breeze.

There will be no place for darkness in that place of living light. Where an ever-dawning morning pushes back the dying night.

The very air will fill with brilliance, as the brightly shining sun and the moon and half a million stars are married into one.

The next place that I go won’t really be a place at all there wont be any seasons winter, summer, spring or fall----

Nor a Monday nor a Friday nor December nor July and the seconds will be standing still while hours hurry by.

I will not be a boy or a girl a woman or a man I’ll simply be just, simply me. No worse or better than.

My skin will not be dark or light I won’t be fat or tall the body I once lived in won’t be part of me at all.

I will finally be perfect I will be without a flaw. I will never make one more mistake, or break the smallest law.

And the me that was impatient, or was angry or unkind, will simply be a memory. The me I left behind.

I will travel empty handed there is not a single thing I have collected in my life that I would ever want to bring,

Except the love of those who loved me, and the warmth of those who cared. The happiness and memories and magic we shared.

Though I will know the joy of solitude... I’ll never be alone. I’ll be embraced by all the family and friends I’ve ever known.

Although I might not see there faces, all our hearts will beat as one, and the circle of our spirits will shine brighter than the sun.

I will cherish all the friendship I was fortunate to find, all the love and all the laughter in the place I leave behind.

All these good things will go with me. They will make my spirit glow. and that light will shine forever in the next place that I go.