by Kaye George
A lot of writers
include animals in many of our our stories. A book without animals is kind of
like a house without a pet—feels empty.
International Animal
Rights Day was the 10th of this month, did you know that? There are many
horrific stories I could tell, of course, to convince you that more work needs
to be done for the poor creatures who have no words to express themselves, let
along cell phones and access to social media. However, I don’t want to bring
you a downer in this holiday season, so save those thoughts for January.
This is the season
of Good Will to All. I’m sure Santa treats his reindeer well. How could they
make it around the world like that if they weren’t in tip-top condition?
You can track the
path of Santa and his deer here if you’d like to.
When I was
little, I worried that our dog, Skipper, who died while still a puppy, wouldn’t
get to heaven. I also wanted there to be horses there, since my parents weren’t
going to get me one while I was on earth, evidently. (Sure enough, they never
did. It was plain that our back yard was plenty big enough for one little
horse, but they couldn’t see that.)
Tommy, who lived
across the alley and was Catholic (I was Methodist—still am), assured me that
dogs and cats and horses would never be in Heaven. They would go, he said, to
Limbo. I would also go there since I wasn’t Catholic. I made up my mind right
then that I much rather be going to Limbo, not Heaven. It would be full of
superior-sounding boys like Tommy.
I wonder if it’s
a coincidence that Pope Francis chose this time to tell the little boy, “Paradise
is open to all of God’s creatures.” It’s almost enough to make me want to go to
Heaven, after all.
All animal photos from morguefiles
Photo of Pope Francis from Wikipedia
