“God is Near”

“God is Near” is a small card above Miss Stubbs’s bed, but in the cottage where she has spent years confined to one room it carries the weight of a final question: whether her beloved animals will remain with her after death. Its plainness matters. The words offer no elaborate theology, while the conversation beneath them turns on the practical, intimate bonds of care between a woman and her pets.

The Card in Miss Stubbs’s Room

The card is a strip of cardboard about eight inches long, with plain black lettering and no frame or ornament. It hangs carelessly from an old gas bracket, positioned so Miss Stubbs can look up from her bed and read it. Its lettering is ordinary enough to resemble a sign such as “No smoking” or “Exit”; the difference lies in the words themselves, and in the room they inhabit.

The room is the ground-floor front room of a cottage, reached past a garden that has become overgrown. Miss Stubbs has been there for a long time and will never get up again. James Herriot has visited regularly for more than a year, entering amid the dogs’ familiar barking and finding the old woman in bed beneath the card. Though illness and pain define her confinement, she does not speak to him about them. Her attention is fixed instead on her three dogs and two cats.

A Sign Above a Conversation About Death

After Ben dies, Miss Stubbs tells James Herriot, “It will be my turn next.” She is calm about her own approaching death and says that she is not afraid because she believes something better is waiting for her. The card above her bed gives a visual focus to that confidence, but her composure falters when she explains what still troubles her: she fears that she may never see her dogs and cats again.

Her worry is not simply about death in the abstract. She expects to be reunited with her parents and brothers, but has heard that animals have no souls. The possibility that her pets might be excluded from that reunion makes her grasp James Herriot’s hand and brings tears to her cheeks. The card’s assurance is therefore tested by a particular attachment: whether a human being’s hope of an afterlife can include the animals she has loved.

James Herriot’s Answer

James Herriot answers from the evidence of affection he sees in animals. He tells her, “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” Rather than offer a formal religious argument, he treats love, loyalty, and gratitude as grounds for believing that animals belong within the reach of the afterlife.

Miss Stubbs asks him to be honest rather than merely reassuring. He admits that he is “a bit foggy about all this,” but says, “Wherever you are going, they are going too.” She asks whether that is truly what he believes, and he confirms that it is. His certainty is personal, not presented as a general religious ruling: the comfort rests on his conviction about animals and on the bond between Miss Stubbs and her pets.

The Card Afterward

Later, James Herriot returns to the cottage and finds it silent and strangely lifeless without the dogs at the window. The bed remains in its corner, and the familiar objects of care—half-empty bottles, ointment, and Ben’s tablets—are still there. Nothing has been moved, but the room no longer has the person and animals who gave it life.

At the door, James Herriot pauses to read the card above the empty bed for the last time. Its words have accompanied Miss Stubbs through confinement, her fear of separation, and the assurance he gave her. In the emptied room, the phrase is no longer only a declaration of nearness to God; it also recalls her hope that death would not sever the companionship she valued most.