I have this memory of guacamole. I was about six years old in my aunt’s kitchen. Someone had made homemade guacamole and everyone except my brother and me loved the way avocados tasted. My mom suggested to me that I should try guacamole before I thought I didn’t like it. I took a tortilla chip, dipped in the guacamole and tried a tentative bite. I tasted a mushy green substance, but the overwhelming taste for me was vinegar. I wanted to gag, but I knew I would get into trouble if I did, so I just struggled to swallow the bite. Then, I said I didn’t like it and didn’t want anymore. My mom couldn’t believe that I didn’t like it.
For years, I didn’t go close to an avocado; I believed that they tasted awful. Then, a couple of years ago, my husband and I went to eat in a Mexican restaurant. We ordered fajitas and they brought out a grill red pepper. I thought it was a mini bell pepper and took a bite from it. The pepper turned out to be a red jalapeno pepper. I didn’t know there were red jalapeno peppers; I thought they were all green. My mouth felt like it was on fire. I wanted something to cool it down. I looked around the table and saw the guacamole. Although I thought it would taste bad, I knew it had lots of natural fat, so I ate some hoping it would help with the inferno raging inside of my mouth. Thankfully it helped considerably. Ever since that incident, I have been trying guacamole more and more and liking it.
The taste buds I had when I was six are not the same taste buds I have now in my fifties. In fact, I am literally not the same person I was when I was six. Yesterday, I ate some guacamole, and I liked it. I realized that little six-year-old wouldn’t believe that she could ever like guacamole. And the truth is she couldn’t. It was a different time, and I was a different person.
There’s something freeing about this concept. Everyone wonders what happens when we die, but I have died over and over again. I will continue to die and eventually my mind will die along with all the different versions of my body, and everything will dissolve back into the universe. It will be okay. That six-year-old girl isn’t stuck in the dark of nothingness. She’s okay. God sees her, He is with her, and will always be with her. God sees me, He is will me, and He will never abandon me. It doesn’t matter how old I am or if I am alive or dead, God will be with me always in whatever form I am even if I am just ashes.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
