All Dogs Go to Heaven

Two months dead. One month and three weeks since I spread his ashes at the base of the Japanese zelkova he marked his favorite commode. I saved a dash to sprinkle on the triangular patch of shrubs outside my apartment’s entrance, the spot once saved for the remaining dribbles from his fritzy bladder. I scattered the pale ashes — his last remaining pieces — delicately, almost daintily, in solemn reverence. That delicateness may have seemed strange to onlookers. But I hadn’t the heart to dump them casually, as if his life was worth so much as a quick pour.

The dusting burial had to be performed early in the morning so nobody would see and think it too odd. He was gone, but my reputation was still alive. I even stuffed them, the last bits of his collagen frame, in a Ziploc bag so as to not draw attention. The surreptitious sneakiness of the send-off robbed it of any serious ritualistic weight. No rites, no holy water, no Frankincense, no communion. I ate a couple of Fig Newtons when I came home, teary-eyed, washed down with some cheap brandy someone left in my little-touched liquor cabinet long before, maybe before Gillenwoof was in my charge.

Bah! How I miss my Gill!

I explained this all to Father Bennet. The good Father was sitting across from me, on my worn pleather couch. He looked uncomfortable, despite the cushions being long molded for human reclination. That I asked him over — really, just down the street from the church, not a long trek — to discuss my late canine dependee didn’t seem to sit well with him.

But shouldn’t I, a member of his devoted flock, have comfort in my mourning? I would never dare compare my loss to that of a son or daughter, though, sweet Gill was something of a child to me, compact and defenseless. Nor does his death hold as much emotional weight as the passing of a parent, a spouse, or a blood relative. But Gillen and I were a family, after a fashion. I deserve — well, deserve may be too strong a term — some kind of consolation. Not a full-fledged mass funeral. Not that far. But some closure. I’m not wearing black but I am in mourning after all!

“You see, I’m in mourning, Father. Mourning the loss of my dear Gillenwoof. You remember him? The tawny Lhasa Apso I brought him to the fish fry last March, the first weekend it was warm enough to have it outside? His fur was positively golden, turmeric with blonde tints. You couldn’t miss him — he radiated like the aureole in Gothic paintings. Those little Wilkin twins wouldn’t leave him be. They kept trying to get him to fetch ash tree limbs. I tried explaining that he wasn’t feeling well, that he was too old for games, but they went on treating him like a puppy. I don’t think the girls have a dog at home, seeing how prim and clean their mother always keeps them.”

If Fr. Bennet was trying to hide his uneasiness, he was failing. His posture was unsure, he was shifting his weight in his seat, not allowing his slim frame to get comfortable, scrunching his black Dockers with his bony hands. All the ladies at church said he was a stickler for the dogma, refusing to budge on everything from female clergy to gay marriage. That was the impression they gathered after the eight or so months Fr. Bennet has been with us, after he was assigned to our parish following the passing of dear, old Father Frasier. Why Fr. Bennet is so nervy over such a simple matter, I don’t understand. These virginal priests, that’s a problem, or maybe the problem. Don’t know how to act in front of a woman, always deferring to the man. I’m a good Catholic, but I never agreed with the bachelor preacher, dispensing the sacraments, chanting holily, comforting the afflicted, then taking all that holy energy and sitting lonesome at night. It seems sad, empty, a punishment, even. But why would God punish his shepherds? I’ve always suspected it was a bureaucratic tradition, too old and worn in to gussy up with the new ways of independent women, such as my little self.

“Since Gill’s passing, I have felt off, Father. I spread his ashes at his favorite constitutional spots. I’ve said a few prayers. But I can’t help but feel like there’s more. More to do to help him properly rest and to assuage my own bereavement.”

“Well…” Fr. Bennet’s small, cap-like eyes flinch up and leftward, to the Woodley Avenue-facing window.

I already know what he’s going to say, and, uncouth as it is to interject a man of God, I feel it necessary to cut to the chase. I am not one of those flighty prattlers whose substance is all in winks and lips — not that I’m in want for the latter, of course.

“I’m not asking for a funeral, Father. Nor last rites, as if they could even be administered post-ashing. I don’t want, nor am I requesting, a spiritual send-off ceremony of any kind. But I suppose what I’m really after is…and you’ll have to forgive me if I can’t quite find the words…is a comfort. An assurance. Some church-y confirmation that…well…Gill is better off, in a better place.”

I try to hold Fr. Bennet’s darting glance with my own wide, sincere, and hazel (once a captivating turquoise!) eyes. But he’s playing hard to eye lock. His half-mooned pupils fidget behind his thin-framed glasses, which sit loosely on his nose’s lower bridge. What is so DAMN…*ahem*…darn hard about this? I tithe. I attend mass regularly. I take my communion wafer and accept it’s Christ’s real living body. I’ve done so since I was a little girl in Silver Spring, with a short sabbatical in my early womanhood. Like everyone else, of course. I’m a good Catholic in good standing. Why shouldn’t I get my piece of the Lord’s peace!?

“Well, the Church doesn’t exactly…” his voice hangs fire. His tiny pupils frisk around violently, trying to latch on to something that isn’t my own warmly bluish gaze. They settle on an old Hummel doll, my mother’s, on the mantle. A squat, cherubic little strawberry-haired girl in greenish overalls with eyes as big as twin pennys. These priests: can’t have a real girl, can’t hardly speak to the regular women at Mass, so pay your attention to the unachievable.

I see directness isn’t going to cut it. Better switch to light chit-chat to pry him open, and tug my absolution out.

“My mother adored that as a child. Said it was such a quaint ideal of cuteness — a little pipik sweetness.”

“It’s a charming knick knack.”

Having to admit his attention was on the porcelain figure means it has to go elsewhere. But not to my waiting eyes.

“You know, Father, I was pretty cute as a child too. And young woman. Or maybe cute isn’t the name for it. NO.” The last syllable finally hooked his attention. His darty eyes shot back to me. “I stopped being cute sometime around, well, not to be too indiscrete…let’s call it menarche.”

The word elicits a scarlet embarrassment to his face. I’ve still got that way to bring men’s blood forward, so to speak.

“Oops! I’m so so sorry, Father! I didn’t mean to embarrass you!” He doesn’t answer, just shifts uncomfortably again in his seat. “I was just trying to say that a woman, well, a girl, really, stops being cute around maturation. She either transforms into beauty like a butterfly, or doesn’t. I bloomed. With grace and beauty. And it remained that way, all through St. John’s and Georgetown.”

Fr. Bennet wouldn’t break his mute. He was gazing at me, not affirmatively, or menacingly, or even covetingly, but just eyeing me, perhaps trying to imagine me as a nubile debutante. A man like him, a man of the robe, may need to work his imagination to see such a lissome young woman. Other men — real men — wouldn’t have to burn nearly as many grey cells.

“I was the belle of the ball! Or…at least,” I steady my flight of drama before it streaks much higher, “the belle of the block. A dame of the District! HA! I had many callers, many young gentlemen setting their fine Saxony tweed caps at me. And we’d step out on the town, to all the looks and recognitions and fine food and maître d’s a woman of my position should be accustomed to.”

“Hmm, yes, a different time, with gentlemen,” Fr. Bennet offered. “Um, Ms. Frances, may I ask again to clarify why it is you summoned me here? To discuss your late companion? To seek closure of a kind?”

My face quinched without permission. I can’t help it! I wasn’t asking for Fr. Bennet — a priest! For heaven’s sake! — to acknowledge my coquettishness. I’m just trying to provide some understanding so that he can get an idea about my suffering. I lost my best friend, my partner, the one per…guy…living creature I had after a life of being sought. Of course, it’s been years since any man has asked me to dinner. It’s not that they’re all married — that epoch came and went twenty years ago. It’s that they’re either dying, or too old for old-fashioned wooing. The exception being pervy George Henderson two floors up, at the opposite end of the hall. He never misses an opportunity to invite me over for roast and buttered carrots all while ogling with his pale unblinking eyes. Checking the mail, riding the elevator, stepping out for some air, when I used to walk Gill, there’d be Mr. Henderson, same stained slacks and floppy polo shirt giving every female who passed his way the business.

Bah! How I miss those walks with Gill. The easy excuse of checking up on the street, getting a look at the passersby. How it’s all changed in the few years I’ve been here on Woodley Road, in the Shady View Apartments. Not two years ago, the streets were lively. Young and old, flashy and reserved, confident men and bubbly women, flashy dressers and conservative stuffed shirts, gays and straights, the important busybodies and unimportant lanyabouts, all teemed the sidewalks, on their way to whatever warm camaraderie awaited them. I was once among them, rouged and flashy in a bright rayon shift, walking briskly in kitty heels to the next suitor. Being in their vicinity, with Gill on his extendable leash, stirred those lovely memories of youthful energy and possibility. It fed my former glamorous sense of self.

Ah, but our little block’s life followed in parallel with Gill’s. As he tired and dragged, so did the foot traffic. The whole city, the radio news tells me, is under the cloud of rising crime, homelessness, diminished prospects. Not that it affects me. My Social Security and the leftovers from my parents’ inheritance is all supportive enough. But how I miss the nods and smiles and look of expectation on passersby while Gill patrolled the shrubbery for trespassers, both man and dog.

I recomposed myself. “Why yes, Father, I did ask you here to discuss dear Gill. But I guess I got caught up in my old lovely memories. When you’re my age, the past is its own friend, in a wistful but pleasing way. And I must say it’s been a long time since I’ve seen young people in this neck of District woods, Father.”

“Yes, it’s…” He surrendered, his look returning to the knick knacks on my mantle piece. “I too have noticed the median age in this neighborhood has inched higher.”

“It wasn’t always like this, though, isn’t that right? When I moved here to Shady View, the streets were crawling with youthful energy. Even the older crowd moved with some excitement, with a certain step. Now everyone’s slow-moving, going nowhere, no dates, no meet-ups, no rendezvous. No life. Do you notice that, Father?”

“Honestly, Ms. Frances.” He meekly cleared his throat and returned my gaze with eyes more pointed. “Irene…”

I cut him off: “Ira.” Irene grates my ears, even after decades of when I dropped it in sixth grade at Annunciation. It wasn’t perfectly seductive like Marilyn, but it was a step up from old dusty Irene, wearer of woolen garters and sunbonnets. “Oh, Father, you know it’s Ira…Irene sounds just so old.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, Ire…Ira,” Fr. Martin almost didn’t catch himself. He nervously pushed his askew glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I have another appointment this afternoon. Can we get back to why you asked me here today? I was afraid it may have to do with the death of your…”

I had to cut him off again — I just couldn’t bear to hear it. “Now, Father, I must stop you there. I can’t bear to hear the d-word and my sweet Gillen commingled in the same sentence. It’s just too soon.”

“Yes, I understand. The loss of a friend is always hard on the heart. But you can take comfort in knowing you gave him a good life, safe and happy.”

There he went again — perfunctory priestly jabber. “Yes, yes, I did treat him well. He’s been my only immediate family for years…that is, who lives with me. I have a sister with whom I’m not particularly close in Flagstaff. But we don’t talk, let alone exchange Christmas gifts and the like. So Gill was my closest family.” The damn welling in my eyes, it could smear my light mascara. I reached for a Kleenex. It’s not fair he left, though I’d never utter such a self-pitying thing out loud. Pitying yourself is unbecoming of a lady.

“I’m sorry he’s…” the Father catches himself. He peers at me with those small eyes behind those wiry frames. His already thin hair is shriveling even more, growing lighter. It seemed so much thicker last June, before Gill needed aggressive prodding to go outside. “What I mean to say,” he picks up again, “is that there are other dogs out there in search of a home, if…if you’re looking for a new do…” Again he catches himself. “Companion.”

Now it’s my turn to be caught. “Oh! I can’t think about replacing Gill. UGH. I don’t want to even use that ugly r-word. It’s so…it’s so…just so…inhumane. It’s like considering adopting a new mother after yours passes. No, no, Father, our bond was too strong.”

“I’m sorry, Ira. I didn’t mean to offend.” His gaze softens. His tense frame pulls back. “I wasn’t really referring to immediately. Sometime in the future, I mean.”

Bah! The future without Gill. Empty and alone. I dread even to talk of it, let alone ponder my days from here on out. “No, Father, I don’t want to discuss other dogs. It’s much too soon, and almost an assault on Gill’s memory.”

“I’m sorry, Ira. Again, it was just a kindly suggestion. Dogs, they come into our lives and fulfill them. Their neediness is a gift to those who can give. The affection they provide is irreplaceable. The severance of that mutual bond is and should be painful. But, given what you’ve related, it sounds like Gill is no longer in pain. That’s a solace that can always be taken at the end of earthly life.”

He slid his lanky frame forward, preparing to sit up. “I’m sorry, Ira, I hope I was able to provide some comfort, but I must…”

I couldn’t wait any longer. My plan of teasing out absolution was faltering. So I went in hot and determined. “Just tell me, Father..” He stopped mid-stand and gently lowered himself. “Tell me. Do you think Gill is in Heaven? With the Lord? Running on a field of clouds? He was a dog after all, and they aren’t sinful creatures. Usually. Gill was so sweet all of his life. He never bit, only seldomly messed inside, only ever wanted his dinner and to curl up by my feet on the floor. That’s as saintly as a dog gets. So he has to be in Paradise, right?”

Silence. Barren, discomforting silence. Father Bennet eased himself down again, but refused to make eye contact. His eyeline was pitched low, into and threw the pleats on my house dress. I knew he wasn’t gazing where unabashed older men like Mr. Henderson might look. My question, my innocent little inquiry into the state of Gill’s sweet soul, had troubled him. But why?

My anticipation was too loud for his desolate quiet. “Now, Father, I hope your hesitance isn’t suggesting that poor Gill is somehow down amongst the sinners..”

“No, Ira, Gill is not in Perdition. That I’m sure.”

My heart leaped, followed by my body from my easy chair. “I KNEW IT! Gill was much too precious a baby to spend an eternity in hellfire! I always thought the old saying about all dogs going to Heaven was a trite comfort. I mean, not all dogs could possibly enter Paradise, not the killers or junkyard guards or even, Lord forgive me, most pit bulls. But only the kind ones, just like people!”

I unconsciously shuffled forward to embrace Fr. Bennet. But he remained inert in his seat, meeting my blissful look with pity. He refused to rise as I towered over him. “I’m sorry, Ira, I was afraid you might ask this, but that’s not how it…works.”

Our eyes broke again, with his pitching down once more. My elation crushed, I seized in place. My legs felt heavy. I could only stare downward at the Father.

More uncomfortable silence followed before, in my shocked state, I managed to utter, “I don’t understand..”

Fr. Bennet looked up again, but didn’t make eye contact. “Our church — our faith — doesn’t hold that animals such as dogs have a soul—what the Old Testament called a nephesh chayyah—and thus pass into the afterlife. It’s harsh to hear, but I’m sorry. Gill won’t be waiting for you on the other side.”

Another shock. “That…that…cannot be.”

“Our faith,” Fr. Bennet said finally rising, “says that only humans have substantive souls that can unlock the afterlife.”

Still more shocks. Dogs don’t have souls? I couldn’t repress a gasp. “Now, Father, you’re telling me that dogs, dogs who unconditionally love their owners, don’t have…souls? Have you ever looked into a loving dog’s eyes before? I tell you it’s one of the most soulful things you’ll ever see! Full of light and life!”

“And I’m telling you that God did not grant the canine species with a soul bound for the eternal.”

“But…” I interjected.

“No buts, Ms. Frances. We aren’t discussing an ordinary ethical matter here. Matters of human failing and sin redeemed by God’s infinite grace. We’re talking about beings not made for the beyond, only earth. Dogs, like all non-human creatures, exist solely for man’s use and fulfillment. It’s right there in Genesis.”

“That’s…that’s…so cruel, when you put it like that. That man AND woman can treat the beasts as only playthings, and when they die that’s it. Just dirt and worms and blackness for Gill! How can that be? What God lets that just be?”

“A God loving of his most prized creation. I’m sorry, Ms. Frances, but I won’t lie to you, even for your own sense of closure. Our faith, our belief, means nothing when blended with fiction. And the old trope of all dogs, even some dogs, go to heaven is an unfortunate fiction. A comforting fiction, but fiction nonetheless.”

Unfair. It’s unfair that dogs — our most loyal creatures — can give a lifetime of love to be rewarded with absolute nothingness in the end. A travesty! An injustice! I wanted more than anything to grab Father Bennet by his snooty dog collar and toss him out of my and Gill’s — yes, it was Gill’s too! — apartment. I wanted so badly to eject him, come what damnation may from assaulting a priest. But I couldn’t. I only seethed and despaired.

“Father, I don’t know…,” I finally spoke after a discomfiting gap of silence, during which Fr. Bennet composed himself to depart. “I don’t know if I can accept that.”

“Ira,” he says softly, pivoting back to my first name in a pathetic attempt at gentling his stony demeanor, “my vocation, my discipleship, my entire purpose within the Church isn’t to give subjective condolence, but to bring the Truth of the Word unto the world. God set the parameters for Heaven and Hell. I simply provide a map.”

More silence. My head was shaking back and forth. I couldn’t control it. How? Why? What kind of God would allow this to happen to sweet Gill? To let him perish after a life of service to his guardian?

“I thought this might be coming, but, even so, I’m always a little surprised by this line of questioning, Ira. I’m not sure where you or anyone else picked up on the idea that animals, that non-human beings, have a destiny in the beyond. You certainly didn’t get it from any homily. It didn’t come from the church. But you unfortunately aren’t the first parishioner I’ve spoken to about dogs and heaven. It’s a popular-culture notion, and one that is regrettably reductive, even inimical to the faith, because of the pedestal it puts beasts on compared to man.”

I was done. Fr. Bennet was a rock, just like all these lonely bachelor priests in dealing with women. Unmoving. Too stolid, too cold. Too un-human. “Gill was no beast. He was a better person than most people, I can tell you that, Father. I’ve known many, especially in this city, who couldn’t stand toe to paw with Gill when it came to generosity and loyalty.”

“That may be so. Gill may have been kinder than what any number of men and women in this city can muster. But only people stand in judgment before the Father at the end of their time. Only their moral behavior is up for judgment. I’m afraid Gill’s instinctual affection was predetermined long ago by the Father, if that makes sense.”

“No!” I snapped. “Father, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to hear anymore.” My hands were thrilling, my feet were stamping softly. All out of my control.

“I’m sorry, Ira, but the Church, our faith, our Lord, won’t let me deceive you about the holy order of things.” He turned to leave. “I sense that nothing else I could or might say would make this easier to comprehend. And I have other appointments to keep, unfortunately. Please know, my line is always open if you’d wish to discuss this anymore. It may not seem like a comfort now, but the truth of things is its own kind of balm for our travails.”

“But what about for Gill’s?” I ask as Fr. Bennet steps toward my deep inset door.

“His travails are over and he is at peace. His agony is through. I think if Gill were a rational creature, he’d want you to be happy that he’s no longer in pain.”

“I…,” I don’t want to concede the point to Fr. Bennet, right as he might be, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough. All that love, just for cessation? “I’m sorry, Father, I just can’t seem to grasp it. So many men, so many men, I’ve met and loved and who’ve never treated me half as good as Gill did. Those men could, were they to reform from their raffish, sinful ways, could reach Heaven. But not Gil?”

“I’m afraid not, Ira.” He looked at me now, no longer reticent and nervous, but hard and determined. His faint little forehead was bent forward, aquiline like, his diminutive pupils as sharp as during one of his emotive sermons. “That’s all I can offer you. The truth of God’s creation. That’s all that’s within my ecclesiastical authority to offer. You and many others wish it were different, but God’s will does not bend for our broken hearts.”

Nothing. How could I, how could anyone, dispute such reasoning? There’s no feeling in it. Fr. Bennet is a coward, yes, a stone-cold coward. Relying on God to hurt a poor grieving woman. A man like the rest, holy he might be. Still a man.

“Thank you for stopping by, Father.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the answer you were looking for.” His stern demeanor disappeared through the door. I could hear his hard-soled shoes clomp to the elevator. Then there were two pings and he was gone.

Good riddance! Men always leave with your heart and think nothing of it. Even the godly ones. Gill never did that. He was a mensch to the end, the most lovingly loyal companion I’ve ever had.

Forget Father Bennet. He can have his body and blood of Christ, his incense, his collar, his sermons, his altar boys, his parsonage. Forget all the rest, the Stephens, the Martins, the Peters, the Nicholases, all those bright, coiffed, and wickedly cutting men, in their tailored suits and Ivy educations in their heads. None of them could hold a candle to Gill, wherever he is. And if I choose to think he’s in Heaven anyway, wagging his elegantly long tail on the lap of the Holy Father, well, that can just be between me and Gill. God has forgiven worse foolishness, if it is, indeed, foolish.

All my life I was foolishly in love with enough no-count achievers. Now I can be a fool for someone who loved me unconditionally. And nobody can question it — not even God’s earthly representative. A foolish old woman in the end. But a loved one.