Chapter 7: What was something that you believed all through childhood and were surprised to find out was false?

Originally written February 1, 2021

Good dogs up in Heaven

I was lucky growing up that my mom and my grandparents didn’t fill my little head with very many typical religious or political beliefs. We were not churchgoing folk, so I never was really indoctrinated with a bunch of Christian dogma.

My grandfather loved to tell us how Jesus’ disciples tried to keep a bunch of little kids from bothering the Lord, and how that pissed Him off and how He basically told them that He’d rather hang out with kids than a bunch of stinky old religious freaks. (These are my words, not my grandfather’s, but that’s what I got out of it, and interpreted it to mean that my grandfather also would rather hang out with kids than with most people.)

Meanwhile, my grandmother made it very clear that the Bible was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo hooey. “You can prove anything you want with the Bible,” she used to say. “You can justify war, slavery, anything, and it’s all in the Bible.”

As for politics, unlike a lot of people I grew up with in Oklahoma in the 1950s and ‘60s, there was no “America Right or Wrong” in our house. While I was still in grade school my mother and especially my grandmother would rant about the foolishness of the Vietnam war and how “we have no business over there.” My grandmother told me that if I even thought of enlisting in the Army, she’d shoot off one of my toes so I couldn’t go! And I feared Nana far worse than Charlie.

I’m not saying my folks were free-thinking progressives by any means. My grandmother’s racism was something I had to overcome. At one point when I was very young I remember her telling me that most southern slave-owners were very good to their slaves and that after the Civil War, most slaves preferred to stay with their masters. Fortunately, Nana’s lessons in skepticism probably helped me not buy into that idea. (Later in her life, at least by the time I got to college, thankfully Nana’s racism had started to wither. I realized that when she told me that U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan, who was on the committee handling the impeachment of Richard Nixon, was the smartest and most eloquent member of Congress.)

My point here is that it was not shocking to me when I found out that, in the words of John Lennon, “There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky ...” or that the good old USA was always right and you shouldn’t question wars or whatever.

However, one theological idea I picked up in my childhood and probably stuck with longer than it should have was a weird concept my grandmother taught me:

Dog and Cat Heaven.

I was disappointed when I learned this was not a documentary

Dog and Cat Heaven seemed like such a great idea, my young mind was intrigued. A place in the afterlife where good dogs and cats would patiently wait for their owners, eager to jump on them and lick them when their time came. I don’t remember how that worked in this cosmology. Would people in Heaven have to get special passes to go visit their furry friends in Dog and Cat Heaven? Would other pets such as parakeets or fish or turtles be allowed in Dog and Cat Heaven? I have a vague memory of Nana telling me that yes, there would be room for all pets there.

But I’m pretty sure that snakes wouldn’t be welcome there, even if they were pets. Nana hated snakes.

Despite her religious skepticism, Nana believed in a human Heaven as well, where upon death everybody is reunited with their loved ones. She wasn’t big on Hell. “You get enough Hell on Earth,” she’d say.

I suppose the idea of Dog and Cat Heaven stuck with me longer though because during my childhood I never had to deal with any human death until my grandfather died in 1967 when I was 13. I don’t remember specifically, but it seems plausible , perhaps even likely that Nana sprung Dog and Cat Heaven on me trying to bring comfort following a death of some pet I loved.

I don’t remember exactly when I stopped believing in Dog and Cat Heaven, so “finding out the truth” wasn’t actually surprising.

But just a few years ago when Rocco, the greatest dog I’ve ever known, died, I remember thinking about Dog and Cat Heaven and wishing it was real.

If there is a Dog and Cat Heaven, I hope Rocco has plenty of bananas.

And perhaps Elvis influenced my views on Dog and Cat Heaven: