I'm still awake

And it's oh so late

But I'm remembering

The fated day

When I hear the words

"He's dead"

My world began imploding

To her voice recurring

"He's dead and gone"

Monotonous through my head.

A single word reverberating

Dead

Dead

Dead

Such finality in a single syllable

I lie awake and wonder

How an atheist feels death

No God, no heaven

Just plain old simple death

It's singular monotone syllable…Death.

I cannot start to imagine

What it's like to not know faith

To be blind to life eternal

With the God who from a kernel

Can create an apple tree and its blossom.

But I know God

And his loving promise of life eternal

Seated with him on high.

I know about his only son

Sent here to earth to die.

That's' why when I remember

I am happy

For I know in this 'finite' existence

It is just the beginning

And that my friend is up there grinning

As he skates God's heavenly halfpipe.

Heaven is a halfpipe.