DO THEY STAMP PASSPORTS IN HEAVEN?

Today, I looked at McKayla’s passport and realized it was so much more than a piece of identification.

A passport is a promise to yourself.

It says there are places you still want to see, journeys you still plan to take, and a future you believe you will be alive to experience.

McKayla had a passport because she had dreams beyond addiction. Somewhere inside her, there was still a young woman who imagined packing a suitcase, boarding a plane and discovering parts of the world she had never seen.

But drugs stole those destinations from her.

They stole the photographs she would have taken, the places she would have stood and the stories she would have brought home.

Her passport remained, but the future it represented disappeared.

I found myself wondering today:

Do they stamp passports in Heaven?

I would like to believe they do.

I imagine McKayla arriving somewhere addiction could not follow her. Somewhere there is no withdrawal, no fear, no searching for the next dose and no body fighting to survive.

Perhaps her passport is no longer waiting for its next destination.

Perhaps it has finally been stamped:

HEAVEN — ARRIVED HOME.

I wish with everything inside me that McKayla had lived to fill her passport with stamps from this world. But because she did not, I will continue telling her story.

Talk to your children about drugs while they are still young. Tell them the truth before curiosity, pressure or a dealer tells them something different.

Education cannot return the destinations drugs stole from McKayla.

But it may help another child live long enough to fill every page of their passport.

McKayla Jean Jones — Forever 27