dying for mary-kate & ashley
on the afterlife & the olsen twins
I talked to my mom on the phone for an hour last night and she mentioned that my 5-year-old nephew Phil asked from the backseat of her Nissan Rogue –
“Hey Grandma, what’s heaven like?”
“Um, I think it’s probably warm and it feels like you’re always sitting in the sun and Jesus is there and all of your friends are there.”
“What, you’ve never been?”
“No, Phil, I haven’t died!”
“Oh. Well. I’m not going to die.”
We laughed. We love him.
When I was young, I didn’t fear death. Or deny it. I accepted it. I had an eternal promise thrust upon me by my seven years of Christian education: Heaven. And I wanted to make it there solely to meet Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen.
The year is 2003. I go to Dutton Christian Elementary. It is next to a cemetery. I write in my diary that I’m the fattest girl in the 3rd grade. My favorite pastime is leafing through the saturated pages of M Magazine and Mary-Kate & Ashley are the ultimate good. I have their posters on my walls, each issue I carefully pry the staples from the centerfold in hopes of minimal damage. I use Scotch tape. I plaster the pictures to the tallest walls in my room, layer over layer, and leave the popcorn ceilings bare.
Mary-Kate is my favorite, a lefty (like me), a rounder face, and she’s undeniably, effortlessly, cooler. When boys on the bus say they can’t tell the twins apart, I hold back a scoff.
In 2003, I’d been keeping a diary for a few years already. I began writing in the first grade. Mostly truths, sometimes lies.
I remember the day when I wrote that I was the fattest girl in 3rd grade. I don’t think I even cared that much. It was an observation, astute, correct. I wrote that my crush winked at me in gym class. Which never happened. I wrote that the US had officially declared war. That did happen. I wrote about how I wasn’t good at laser tag, but that’s okay, because it’s trying new things that matters, and everyone can’t be good at everything. I was learning a lot about the world, about my beliefs, reckoning with why some kids were mean to me and sadly realizing that I wasn’t the MVP of my basketball team.
On a particularly memorable day in my 3rd grade class Mrs. V. was doing a lesson on eternal life: the ultimate reward. A joyful afterlife with our loved ones forever. A family reunion for the believers. She was painting vague visions of the Pearly Gates. Heaven has the biggest flower bed. Heaven has a polished fountain at the city center.
I had my own questions for the unanswerable: Would Heaven have perimeters or would it be like the universe? Could you ever bump into a wall and think, “Oh, yep, here’s the end of it.” Would there be a doorbell ringing for the newly dead? A personalized parade for each incoming angel? How many confetti launchers would I hold each day? Would my throat ever tire from whooping and hollering and welcoming the newcomers? Would I have to share a room? Do I get to fly? I’d learned how to fly in dreams fairly often. I knew that it felt like swimming on my back, floating. I knew that it didn’t require much physical exertion once you got the hang of it.
It was on this day that it really clicked.
When I died, I would finally get to meet Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen.
I had little faith that my Michigan-centric life would ever allow me to be in the same space as the Olsen Twins. I even knew that they didn’t like being called The Olsen Twins — they preferred being called by their first names. I knew they were Geminis. And fraternal. They got to pick their onscreen love interests. When I Googled them today one of the most searched things around their names was: “When Did The Olsen Twins Stop Smiling?” and the answer to that is posted as: 2005.
Mary-Kate & Ashley were God’s ultimate reward to me for being such a good and devout Christian girl. I deserved it! My home life was tough and I still prayed, I still believed, I got good grades, I was planning on saving myself for marriage, I was baptized as a baby in a perfect white doily dress and the entire congregation cooed.
My salvation wasn’t a question but what about the others?
My mind went to the Amazon rainforest — the Roman Empire for many 9-year-olds.
I couldn’t help myself,
I raised my hand and asked,
“What about the people in the rainforest who have never heard of God? What happens to them?”
Mrs. V. took a moment before she answered curtly,
“... That’s what missionaries are for.”
I just nodded and kept mum and thought to myself, This is complete bullshit.
I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
My teacher couldn’t be that dense – could she?
Mrs. V. was pretty and had a blonde bob and big perfect teeth and a dog named after the Buffalo Bills, but I immediately knew she had no idea what she was talking about.
I carried this conversation with me for the rest of my life. I stayed in Christian school for 2 more grades before I asked to transfer to public school. I never believed that there is an afterlife where I can look out of my heavenly loft’s window at the unsaved souls drowning in a pit of gurgling lava or surrounded by piranhas barking at the surface.
I’m not sure what your parents told you about the afterlife. About the sanctity of souls, whatever that means. If some are more deserving than others. I’ve had dreams about my dad since he’s passed that have changed my idea of what happens when we die. God is actually, like, really nice. He told me. I do know that living on Earth is so hard that to not be given a gift of the ultimate exhale seems wrong.
I do, however, think when I die that Mary-Kate Olsen just might be leaning on those Pearly Gates nursing a Marlboro Red, hair smudged with the heavenliest dabs of grease, and I’ll look down to adjust my white robe before I go and ask if I could maybe, possibly, bum one.
So good Jamie
You're the only person I make it a point to carve out time to sit down and read every word.
I am obsessed with your writing.