Heaven & uncomplicated empathy

If the afterlife is “real,” I’d like everyone to go to heaven.
I imagine this is the only way to feel entirely uncomplicated empathy for all.

Person-on-person harm is a terrible thing. It wants to collapse into one narrative or another: minimization or demonization, selfish idiots or strategic monsters. But whenever I’ve truly looked at the worst interpersonal harms I’ve experienced, I’ve only found something disappointing: a person who deserves empathy while doing absolutely nothing to deserve it.
A person who promises to turn that empathy into a trap, even while needing it. Really, they needed it long ago, when someone or something failed them — a parent, a system. And what is anyone supposed to do with that?

So, I imagine heaven as the only place where all harm can be repaired.
People apologize to each other; we apologize to the animals and insects (maybe); people from the past apologize to us; we apologize to future people, and on and on, until everyone is well. And seen. And understood. And repaired.
That place isn’t yet this world, but I hope it’s somewhere.

I don’t have a particularly utopian vision of the future, nor a terrifying one. But I think both directions are possible. We already see both, in people, who are very lovable and hateable.

But regardless of how I feel towards anyone, I like that we can work to make things better, for everyone. I like that everyone deserves better.

Anyways, here is the poem I wrote on this, today:

I had a daydream of heaven
With every person I’ve known
Finally, I could reach them all —
just like I’d hoped

And to the first one, I said,
"I hate what you did to me,
and just the same,
I hate what they did to you"
And we both nodded,

To the second, I said,
“I’m sorry,”
And it was okay,
I think
At least,
that was my daydream