All Dogs Go to Heaven

In the past couple of months, I’ve found myself pondering a great deal about Heaven. I’ve marveled at the potential wonders that await me there while reading the book “90 Minutes in Heaven” on my way to Fiji for my honeymoon. I’ve wondered about it while waiting in line for confession at church and combatted moments of severe doubt as to whether I’ll ever even get in. I’ve speculated as to how many of us know beforehand that our journey home is beginning when visiting my Aunt Debbie in the hospital a week before she passed. And I urgently hoped, in the middle of saying my final goodbye to my best furry friend, Gracie Lou, that the first faces to greet me when I reach Heaven will be those of all the dogs I’ve known and loved throughout my life.

With Heaven there are no answers…..only questions. But for those of us with faith, even the tiniest fragments of it, we can take comfort in believing that far greater things await us there than any we have known in this life. Death should not incite grief in us but anxious anticipation at the day when we join those who were called home before us.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon the cartoon pictured below. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth when I saw it and pulled slowly across my entire face in feeling a wave of comfort at its message. Of all the things that have aided me in tackling my recent grief and frustration over the brevity of life, this humble cartoon incited the greatest conversion in my heart and mind in thinking about life, death, and Heaven.

The cartoon no doubt struck me so deeply because of recently suffering the loss of our Keeshond, Grace. In the first hours after her passing, I lay on my living room floor crying uncontrollably. As my husband tried desperately to comfort me, the only words I could blubber out coherently were that “I really hope I make it to Heaven someday so I can see her again.” There are many days where I question the probability of my salvation, but never once have I ever doubted that all dogs go to Heaven.  I believe that if for no other reason than because of their Christ-like ability to love unconditionally.

Between reading “90 Minutes in Heaven” and “Heaven is For Real,” interviewing a hospice worker, hearing accounts of the final things my grandfather said before he passed, and hearing my Aunt Debbie muttering in her last days about how her father (my grandfather who passed years earlier) should be with her, I know and believe that a whole bunch of people will be waiting for each of us when we finally enter Heaven. But I also believe, that the faces that will rush out to greet us first will be our dogs. Because really…..our dogs love us far more during their short lives than any other beings we ever encounter.

I like to think that our loved ones, when they pass on, take comfort in knowing that we will all be reunited someday. And so they go about enjoying the wonders of their new home. But dogs I believe, as the cartoon so quaintly depicts, likely spend every waking moment in Heaven talking about their family and how much they can’t wait to see them again. Dogs are quite possibly the most patient of creatures and spend most of their lives waiting. They wait to hear the click of the door handle when we arrive home from work or school. They wait for us to feed them dinner or walk them outside when getting the mail. They wait for us to notice them lying on their backs so we’ll scratch their bellies.  Rain or shine, five minutes or five hours, whether their master is in a good mood or bad, dogs wait for us.

While I feel sad for all of the people and animals I’ve lost in my life, I fully trust in the fact that I will see them all again someday. And no doubt, my first glimpse of Heaven will be of a huge herd of dogs running full speed my way. They will be the ones that will not have stopped thinking of me or waiting for me since we parted ways. Dogs, after all, aren’t just life companions but eternal ones.