8. Play Time

I wasn’t afraid to die. I knew that I would. When my sister died first I was jealous, but we are twins, identical twins. We shared everything, including the illness, and so I knew it would be my turn soon. We used to play together in our angel world, in our dreams. But sometimes when we were awake we would go to our secret place and sort of day-dream, and have such adventures and play with our friends. It could be raining outside but in our summerland it never rains. There are trees to climb and flowers, a lake and a river for swimming, and forests and meadows. We can eat as much as we like, whenever we want to. It doesn’t matter if it is meal-times or anything, we just think about ice-cream or chocolate cake, or orange juice, and there it is. There are some grown-ups who sort of look after us and try to give us lessons, but not in a bossy way and mostly we just run away and play. No one follows us and we never get into trouble for it. So when my sister left her body behind I knew that was where she had gone.
People looked at me strangely at the funeral as I never cried at all. Apparently I had a big smile on my face, but that’s because she was jumping around, pulling faces and making me laugh, only no one else could see her. They didn’t understand and thought I had gone soft in the head or was being naughty. Then I got very sad because I was on my own and could only see her in my dreams. Day-dreaming my way to summerland was much harder on my own and I got so afraid that I might forget about summerland, and about our other friends. I could never forget what she looked like or the sound of her voice because I only had to look in the mirror or to say something. We are that alike – best friends too. We have been together for ever so many lives, but not as twins before. We thought it would make a change, be fun, but it was a bad life and we decided very quickly that we would leave it and try again with different parents.
Our earth life was never as good as summerland. We were often afraid of the shouting and the cold and hunger. They weren’t exactly cruel but they didn’t know how to look after children, or maybe they just didn’t really try very hard. So sometimes they would forget to feed us, or go out and leave us on our own and we didn’t know when they were coming back, or who would come back. And that could be worse than being left on our own. That’s why we used to spend so much time hiding in our secret place, where we could escape back to our other, real home. After a bit, on my own, I just wanted to join her. There was nothing left for me on earth. Everything seemed dark and cold and empty and I didn’t understand why I had to wait, why we couldn’t have gone together. When my turn came I was excited and only a little bit scared. It felt like ages, but it was less than one birthday, and now we are together again. Towards the end, when I was ill in bed, I found that I could leave my body more easily and she was always there, waiting for me. She looked a bit older, but so healthy and full of life and fun. There is no sickness or hunger in summerland and grown-ups are always kind to us, and show us how to do things. We are leaning how trees grow and how insects are made, and how to help them with our energy. But mostly we just play.