A couple of weeks ago, my best friend died. And while it is impossible to fully describe the ache of missing her, I can tell you what made her so wonderful. She was kind and loyal, always up for an adventure and satisfied by the simplest of pleasures like car rides, crumbs that fell from the kitchen table and cold mountain streams. She was at my side when I woke in the morning and when I went to sleep at night. She remained there through joy and heartbreak, and on several occasions, tried to wipe away my tears with her big tongue. Yes, my best friend, Toots, was a dog. And she was undoubtedly the creature I cherished most on this earth.
And it wasn’t just Toots’s winning personality that I adored. I was enchanted with pretty much everything about her. Toots was an English labrador with warm, round eyes and a heart-shaped face, a thick black coat and wide tail. We met four years ago at an animal shelter, when she was 8 years old—elderly in dog years—and about 30 pounds overweight. With the right medication and exercise, Toots shed about 20 of those extra pounds, although she would always walk with a pronounced waddle and stiff hind legs, endearing everyone further to her.
When I adopted a senior dog, people thought I was either saintly or crazy. But the truth is I just fell madly in love with her. I didn’t care how many years she had left. My intention was simply to make those years sing. Something happens when we become aware that our time is limited. We stop putting off plans for tomorrow when the sun is shining today; we savor the car rides and cold mountain streams; we become hyper-vigilant with every limp or stumble. Ultimately, I learned to love harder in the present. Caring for my senior dog was a masterclass in that Lenten refrain: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It was my soul that she was training.
A week after Toots died, I received a call to collect her ashes. My heart dropped to my stomach. I knew the call would come. I knew what would happen to her body. But my first reaction was still to protest, to protect Toots.
How dare they burn her.
I got to hold her close as the vet administered euthanasia, her sweet nose anointed with my tears, but I could not accept that her body had been reduced to ashes.
How dare death touch my love.
The body I studied and adored, the body I cuddled and cared for, was no more. Anger and grief swelled like a tidal wave within me.
How dare God allow this cruel fate—for any of us.
The following Sunday, I sat in the pews and cried. Was I crying to God or before God? Was this a prayer of protest for the sorrowful state of the world, or was I simply allowing myself to mourn? I’m still not sure. But those tears were talking.
I thought of Ash Wednesday and how, in just a short time, the entire church would join me in embracing ashes and crying out before God. And for the first time, I felt genuinely grateful for this Lenten practice. Where else in our relentlessly optimistic, death-denying culture can we go to grieve the brokenness in our lives or to lament the rot that touches all of creation? Not only does the Catholic liturgy acknowledge the gutting reality of death, but it centers this experience of frailty and consecrates the ashes that remain.
I have often pondered the strangeness of receiving ashes, how the symbol on our forehead seemingly runs contrary to the Scriptures of the day. “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them,” reads Matthew 6, “for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”
Even the words that are spoken when we receive ashes can feel strange: “Repent and believe in the Gospel,” derived from the Gospel of Mark 1:15. Or “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” taken from Genesis 3:19 as Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden.
When I am standing in line, waiting to receive my ashes, I have always hoped to hear the former and dreaded the latter. Many have regarded this remembrance of our death as key to spiritual growth, but for me, it has always felt more like a condemnation than a blessing. Of course, both phrases are meant to remind us not only of the fallen nature of the world around and within us, but also of the covenant of love God has made with us through Jesus.
The hope we find in ashes is essential, but this doesn’t make death any less brutal. And as someone still intensely grieving, I can say that, this year, I’m in no rush for Easter. Or rather, that I am deeply appreciative of the Lenten season as it gives us space to grieve, to name all that is broken, and to cry out in pain, sorrow and rage before our God.
The smearing of ashes feels far less strange to me these days. In fact, I’m not sure any substance or symbol could speak more forcefully to the intimate acquaintance I have made with death.
I have learned that nothing about this season is meant to trigger guilt. The repentance called for is metanoia, which is Greek for a turning of the heart—away from sin and toward God. Sometimes the Lenten season comes knocking while we are still whirling in the revelry of Mardi Gras, before we see the need for sackcloth and ashes. Here, our Lenten observances are intended not to dampen our joy but to allow space to soberly reflect on those things that can surreptitiously undercut our deepest joys and sabotage our relationship with God, others and ourselves.
Other times, we have already been visited by some kind of death—an injury or illness, a fractured relationship or a climate disaster—and we are forced to reckon with the experience of inherent vulnerability that marks all of our lives.
Perhaps this year you, too, fall into this strange category in which Ash Wednesday is not an imposition, or condemnation, but a loving confirmation that things are really as broken as they feel. A season in which these ashes become an outward expression of an inward reality.
But here’s the good news: If you have sat in the pews and openly wept before God, you know that this experience is already changing you. The masterclass of the soul is already in session, grounding us in the present, helping us love more tenderly and clarifying what is truly foundational in our lives. As grief levels us and strips away the vain distractions of our day, the soul naturally turns to its Creator.
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