Zippy stuck his head out the car window, grinning into the wind that ruffled his fur. We were having a fine time vacationing in a cabin in northern Minnesota for the month of August.
My husband, Bill, hiked; Zippy, our Shetland sheepdog, ran in the open space; and I painted. We left our hideaway to replace the creaky old bed frame in the cabin.
“Look over there!” I said, pointing up the road at a country store with a big sign hanging out front: Consignment Shop.
Bill pulled up and parked. Zippy jumped around in back, eager to get out. “You stay here for a second, Zippy,” I said. I climbed out and poked my head into the store, chock-full of stuff, floor to ceiling. “Mind if we bring our dog in?” I asked the blonde woman at the counter.
“No dogs allowed,” she said. “I’m awful sorry.”
Guess she isn’t a dog person, I thought. I motioned for Bill to come in alone. We couldn’t leave Zippy in the hot car for long. I picked through the narrow aisles, but I couldn’t really concentrate. “Be back in a sec,” I said to Bill, and made my way through the maze of items to check on Zippy.
He barked joyously as I approached. “Okay, boy,” I said, letting him out of the car. He jumped around at my feet and rolled over in the grass in front of the store. I scratched his tummy.
“He sure loves you,” someone said from behind me. It was the woman from the shop. She set a bowl of water on the ground. “My name’s Lana.” Zippy lapped up her kind offering. Lana scratched him behind his pointed ears. Guess I was wrong about her, I thought.
“I hate turning dogs away,” said Lana, “but the store’s overcrowded. You know what I think the best thing about heaven will be? Every dog will be welcome there!”
I raised my eyebrows. Dogs in heaven? Much as I loved Zippy I’d never considered such a thing. Zippy chased butterflies in the grass as if he couldn’t imagine a nicer place than where he was right now. Could there be an even better place waiting for him somewhere? “Do you really think there will be animals in heaven?” I asked.
Lana pointed up the hill. A driftwood cross was barely visible, sticking out of the ground. “That’s where my dog’s buried,” she said. I felt a pang in my heart looking at the distant cross. Zippy was 10 years old, and I couldn’t bear to think of a time when he would leave us, though I knew it would happen.
“I thought I’d lost him forever,” said Lana. “I was devastated. One night I was lying on my bed crying over it, and God gave me a vision.”
“You mean a dream?” I asked.
Lana shook her head. “It wasn’t your usual dream. Not by any stretch. Jesus was sitting on his throne. My dog had his paws up on Jesus’ lap. Jesus was rubbing him under the chin, just the way he liked.” Zippy lost interest in the butterflies and came and sat obediently by my side. He perked his ears up at Lana.
“My dog turned and looked at me,” she went on. “He thumped his tail on the ground. It was as if that animal had found his voice and told me: He was happy in heaven, so I shouldn’t grieve for him any longer.”
Zippy rolled over and wiggled on his back in the grass. I tried to picture Jesus rubbing his belly, the way Zippy liked. It seemed kind of silly. Why should it, though? I asked myself. Doesn’t God love all creatures of the earth?
Bill called from the store, “Found what we’re looking for!” Lana went to take care of business, and I got Zippy back in the car. I told Bill all about Lana’s vision during the drive back to the cabin, and I thought about it in the weeks after when I stood sketching in front of my easel. “I’m going to paint it,” I told Bill one morning. “Just like Lana described.”
I sketched Jesus on a throne with a sleek greyhound resting its head on his knee. “Do you approve, Zippy?” He panted, and I took that to mean yes. Once I started painting, more dogs appeared on the canvas. A German shepherd pulled at Jesus sleeve. A spaniel nosed his arm. Other dogs gathered at his feet, proud and content. I couldn’t keep them away, and Jesus didn’t seem to mind.
Zippy sat front and center, looking at the viewer the way Lana’s dog had turned and looked directly at her in the vision.
I entered the painting in a local art show back home in Illinois. People were drawn to it. “I always say heaven must be filled with dogs,” someone remarked. “Whenever I picture Jesus,” a woman told her friend, “I’m going to picture him like that.” I was delighted. Zippy was waiting for Bill and me when we got home. “One day you’ll sit at Jesus’ feet too,” I said, “and that will make it easier for me, if you get there before I do.”
The following August Bill, Zippy and I returned to Minnesota and drove straight to the consignment shop. I couldn’t wait to tell Lana how her vision had changed me. But the store was empty. I pressed my face against the glass. “There’s no hint a business ever operated here,” Bill said. Even the big sign was no more.
Zippy sniffed out the window and jumped out to chase a butterfly. I looked up the hill for the driftwood cross, but that too was gone, as if it had never existed. But I had Lana’s vision of heaven, captured in canvas and oils. I knew that the animals we loved would be loved and welcome there.
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