I've been hurt by many people over the years. Often with words, a few times through evil intent or misguided beliefs. Some of it I've shrugged off in time, some of it still persists, the effects evident both in my living and my nightmares.

Personally, I struggle with the vision of a heaven where one floats in perpetuity, reaping the rewards of Earthly sacrifice and adherence to a strict austerity. The "I know you're suffering now but it will all be better once you die and go to Heaven" premise sits uncomfortably, untrusted.

What if you live like the proverbial saints for a lifetime, only to find nothing at the end of it when you close your eyes? No afterlife, no just rewards, no virgins and eternal bliss? What if you only had one shot and you blew it, betting on this afterlife being real?

So I'm more the "Do not go gentle into that good night," kind of person. I don't believe in karma either and though I briefly flirted with the 'power of intention', I lost patience in that too.

Sure, there have been certain people who perhaps deserved to experience themselves the depths of pain they induced in me. The man-devils who molested me as a child; the ones who lacked words and resorted instead to physical retaliation; the online bullies whose crusades shattered lives and destroyed the reputations of loved ones... Yet I never retaliate. I walk away, I disengage. I cannot willingly hurt back.

Because something weird is going on see, something I discovered very early on. My first molester is now doing life in jail. The second one died of cancer when I was in my teens. The one who beat me regularly suffered a stroke in his mid-fifties and is now a shadow, shuffling and mumbling. Someone who once used their power to deny my happiness suddenly dropped from the dizzying heights of wealth and privilege to a life of misery and poverty.

Over the decades, most of those who inflicted hurt received some form of punishment in turn. None of the aftermath involved me or was instigated by my actions. As I said, I don't retaliate. I walk away.

So this makes me think that perhaps Heaven and its bad-ass accomplice, Hell, are right here on our little planet.

Retribution, if it is due, somehow finds evil and negates it. Circumstances are created and the evil-doer becomes in turn the victim. I don't know how or even what the process driving it is called. All I can verify with certainty is that most of those who have wronged me, or hurt me, have paid one way or another over time. And I'm talking about big stuff here, not petty disagreements or differences of opinion.

So I'm leaning more and more towards the concept of Heaven and Hell existing here, perpetually woven into every life. One might argue about the victims whose lives are taken, and the perpetrators never caught. Or about the injustice of a disease like cancer taking the life of an innocent child; or wars killing millions; poverty and starvation wiping out entire communities... Where is their Heaven?

I don't have a world of answers. All I can attest to are the things that have affected me. You might ask then, where is my reward? Where is my Heaven?

The pain I suffered produced words, my life since, enriched by the beauty and the wonder of creation. The pain I suffered also made me more attuned to the agonies of others. When I see pain reflected, I try to help, through words or deeds.

I have two beautiful children. They are almost men now; kind, courteous, considerate and neither causing me a single moment of angst or unhappiness, only ever joyous pride.

They are my Heaven.