For some pet owners, a lifetime is not enough time

NORFOLK

Church of the Epiphany's columbarium is the final resting place for members' cremation ashes, but the first personalities to be interred could well be a Rottweiler and a cat.

In July, the Episcopal congregation's vestry, or governing board, approved parishioners' requests to allow cremated pets to be interred in the same niche with their owners.

Church columbariums are increasingly common in South Hampton Roads, but including animal ashes in the repositories is likely the exception rather than the rule.

At Epiphany, the Rev. Richard O. Bridgford expects to inter his beloved dog, who was cremated five years ago.

"This particular dog was given to me at the church when I was installed," he said. "I thought, 'I got her there, she should end there.' Her ashes are waiting to go in."

The church, which built the columbarium two years ago, also set a niche aside for PC, the parish's late cat.

"He guarded the church from rodents; he was there, gosh, about eight years," Bridgford said. "His ashes are waiting, too. I need to get the markers."

Shirley Dale, who owns Cherish Pet Cremation Services Inc., in Virginia Beach, cremates 10 to 30 dogs and cats every week. Some owners tell her they want to spend eternity with their pets.

"What they were trying to tell me was, they'd have their pets' ashes put in the coffin with them when they're buried," Dale said.

It's a familiar story to Chris Mann, a director at H.D. Oliver, a local funeral-home operation.

"A lot of people now have their pets cremated, and every now and then - it's not real common - you'll have someone come in and ask us to put a container in the foot of the casket," he said.

Church of the Ascension, an Episcopal congregation on Talbot Hall Road in Norfolk, has had a columbarium for years. It doesn't contain any pets.

"Nobody has ever raised that as a concern. For one thing, it's $1,000 for ash interment," said the Rev. David W. Davenport, the parish priest. "I wouldn't anticipate going in that direction here, to tell the truth, and I'm a fond dog owner myself."

Niches are $500 apiece in the columbarium that Epiphany built two years ago in its churchyard on Lafayette Boulevard.

Brian Pritchard, Epiphany's senior warden, said he and the vestry voted unanimously to allow pet ashes in niches.

"It's a great idea, because a lot of us are as close to our pets as we are to many people," said Pritchard, who, with his wife, Junie, owns four cats, a Norwegian Elkhound and a Leonberger, a large dog breed. The couple hasn't decided if they'll reserve space for themselves in the columbarium.

Pritchard noted that Epiphany's yearly blessing of the animals service is well attended. "We have a pretty full congregation, plus a large variety of animals: birds, cats, dogs."

He's heard no opposition at the church to the new interment policy.

"I'm looking at my Leonberger, and I can't imagine not having him with me when I'm gone," Pritchard said. "Our dogs, to me, are probably closer to being Christian than a lot of people."

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com