Strangers in heaven

The hardest I ever cried as a child was the night my mother told me I wouldn't recognize her in Heaven. God and all his angels would be my family, she said. My mother, who brought my lunch and homework to me every day I forgot them (at least three times a week), would be just another stranger.

That's how I came to fear Heaven, how I stopped hoping for its gold streets and fluffy clouds and eternal Hallelujahs.