I saw God in the wee hours...

I saw God in the wee hours of a particularly warm spring morning.  He was sitting in the corner of my room watching over me while I had slept.

“Good morning,” God said in my grandfather’s resonant voice.

“Good morning,” I said, sitting up in bed.  “How long have you been there?”

God smiled…inscrutably, of course…and made no reply.  Yeah, I thought, that was a stupid question.

“I know what you’re thinking,” God said as light slowly suffused the room.

“I’m sure you do,” I said, just a bit sarcastically, rising from bed and not realizing in the moment how utterly unselfconscious I was about being naked.

God chuckled…my grandfather’s chuckle.  “Ever the skeptic,” he said warmly.  He looked at me with my father’s mother’s piercing eyes.  “That’s okay, I have always believed in you just the same.”

“Why?”

God cocked his head slightly, his mouth crinkled into Rose’s patiently impatient frown.  Another stupid question, I realized, but I felt no impulse to feel shame about it.

God reached out…with my maternal grandmother’s welcoming grace, with Simon’s strong, gentle arms…and I folded into his embrace.  God smelled like honey and scotch, like chocolate and cigars…God smelled like Papa.  “Of course I do,” God said with Alan’s affectionate, slightly shy grin.  “You’re pretty calm about all this.”

I closed my eyes, my head against God’s chest…his heartbeat sounded like the best song I never heard…his heartbeat sounded like Annie laughing…his heartbeat sounded like Michael singing…his heartbeat sounded like Eli sighing softly…and I smiled contentedly.   “I’m going to wake up soon,” I said, “so why fight the dream?”

God chuckled again…my brother’s happy laugh…and kissed the top of my head.  “As you say, son,” he said.  “I love you just the same.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, not opening my eyes.  I breathed easily, lingering in God’s embrace as the first rays of the morning sun slipped softly through the open window.