Ask Aunt Foley

Dear Aunt Foley:  The other day I was working and a little child asked me if dogs go to heaven.  He was very upset about his dog passing away and was looking for assurance.  Now my predecessors have always taught that dogs don’t go to heaven.  But this little boy was so upset I told them that they did.  Well my co-workers have become very upset with me and I had to backtrack a bit.  So maybe you can help me.  Do all dogs go to heaven? - Pope Francis.

Dear Pope Francis:  Well I certainly hope so.  If dogs don’t go to heaven then I don’t know where I am.  I certainly hope it isn’t the other place.  I was a good dog.  OK:  I tried to be a good dog. Well, I was a dog.

Where I am now is too nice to be the other place, and there are humans here who have lived exemplary lives so I know I am in a good place.  I just don’t know why some humans want heaven to be just for humans.  I know they are a discriminating species by nature but once they passed from  the mortal side of life I was hoping that would pass.

Even if you weren’t 100 percent sure if what you were saying to the grieving boy was true you deserve to be lauded for trying to put a little boy out of his pain.  I am not saying you were lying, but you said something you weren’t certain was true to ease the pain of a grieving child and there is no greater act of compassion a human can do.  

For those people who do not want to dogs on the immortal side of the River of Life there is the Human Hall where the only souls allowed there are humans so they do not have to share their afterlife with any other souls.  There is also an all white hall, an all black hall, an allSpanish hall.  There’s halls for just about any group you can think of for souls who don’t want to spend eternity with anyone but their own kind.

Oh wait, I just read this over and realized I made a mistake.  I spelled hall when an a between the h and l instead of correctly, with an e between the h and the l.

I will be sorry for that.

For eternity.

Deal with it.