Heaven

Brennan stood at the kitchen counter, slicing fruit for breakfast. Christine opened a drawer, reached in, carefully counted flatware, and carried the appropriate implements to the dining table, where she dropped the handful onto a placemat. "Mommy, does the spoon go by the knife or the fork?"

Brennan responded, "Knife to the right next to the plate, honey, then the spoon; put the fork on the other side of the plate."

"Which is the right side?"

"The hand you write with, sweetie," Brennan replied. Christine whined, "What's taking Daddy so long at the store? I was already hungry in church and now I'm REALLY hungry!"

"Who knows?" Brennan sighed, "when your father goes for groceries when he's hungry, he'll buy out the store."

"Mommy, where is Heaven?" Christine asked suddenly

Brennan paused in her slicing. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, Daddy said Great Grand Pops went up to heaven, but I looked up in the sky, and I can't see anything but clouds, so I just wondered where Great Grand Pops could sit. Wouldn't he fall through?"

Brennan chuckled, then hesitated. "Chrissy honey, I think you'd better ask your Daddy more about this. If anyone knows where one Booth man has gone to, it's another Booth man."

The front door opened and Booth appeared, his arms laden with grocery sacks. He dropped them on the kitchen floor, and leaned in for a kiss. Brennan obliged him, then frowned. "Booth, why are you bringing paper sacks in here? You know I prefer our reusable kind; they're in the trunk of your car."

"Sorry, Bones, when I got to the store and looked in the trunk they were missing. I cleaned out the car yesterday and I guess I forgot to put them back in. They're probably in the garage on my work bench. These only used 1/8th of a tree, it won't kill the planet today. We've got a little time before it disappears…."

"Daddy, we gotta take care of the earth," Christine earnestly reminded him.

"I know punkin, I just messed up this morning," Booth smiled down at her. "Can you fold these up, and we'll use them to carry our newspapers out for recycling next week?"

Brennan looked over and caught her husband's eye, rolling hers at him and making a wry face.

"Christine has a question for you about the stability of clouds, Booth. She's afraid Pops doesn't have any safe place to sit."

Booth stared, his mouth open, "Whaaat?"

"Daddy, the teacher at church talked about heaven this morning and I 'membered you said Great Grand Pops went up there, and how do you sit on a cloud?"

Booth leaned over and hugged the puzzled little girl. "Let's eat breakfast and then we'll talk about it."

Brennan, meanwhile, rolled her eyes at Booth again, over their child's head. Booth smiled back, thinking wistfully of how much he missed Pops.

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Breakfast consumed, dishes cleared and loaded into the dishwasher, Booth refilled his coffee cup, took Christine's hand and went out the back door to one of the cedar Adirondack chairs he'd bought for Bones on their last anniversary. He sat down and pulled Christine up to settler her in his lap.

"Chrissy, heaven is kind of hard to explain. When Pops died, his body was worn out, so remember how we laid him to rest at the cemetery? His soul or his spirit is what lives on forever, and that part of him doesn't need a physical place like the park or a house to go to. I know the cartoons show guys with wings sitting on clouds playing harps, but that's just made up. It's kind of like how we know that Parker is at Rebecca's, and we're here at our house. We're not together in the same place all the time, but we're still together in our hearts and minds. Pops' soul is with God, and he's here with us, in our minds and hearts when we remember him and love him. God can be everywhere at once, and our souls are kind of the same. I know it's hard to understand, but the important thing is that he knows we love him, and he still loves us back, and helps God look out for us, kind of like our guardian angels. It seems confusing, but let me tell you a story. When Jared and I were young, our mom took us to the circus, and we got separated from her in the crowd of people walking out of the tent. We were both really scared. Jared wanted to go look for her, but something told me to just stay put and Mom would find us. That feeling of what to do seemed to me like my guardian angel helping me out and protecting me. I had to argue with Jared to keep him there, but soon Mom showed up and boy, were we glad to see her. Sometimes now that I'm grown, I've had the feeling that Pops was talking to me in my head, giving me some pretty good advice. That happened when he was still alive, but I was far away from where he lives. It's happened since he's been gone too. I guess you could say Pops is an extra guardian angel for us now. Heaven is where he hangs out with God, but since he's a spirit, he doesn't need to sit on a cloud. I know it's complicated, but that's the best explanation I can give you."

Christine squinted in the sunshine, looked out into the yard, up at the sky, and back at her dad. "Do you think Great Grand Pops gets to play with Splashy my gold fish who died last year?"

Booth hugged her. "Yes, honey, I think he does. Lets' go inside and see what Mommy's up to, okay?"

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A/N: Okay, before you start metaphorically throwing theology textbooks at me, this is just an attempt to explain a very complex spiritual matter to a child. No offenses intended to anyone. I once had a young friend ask me about a relative's death, and it was really hard to come up with an explanation to comfort him.