I have some very sad news to report. Our beloved Molly passed away on November 9th. We took her to the vet on the 7th because she, had developed some concerning behaviors over the past few days, and they determined that she had cancer. We didn’t expect her to go so quickly, but she went downhill fast. On Tuesday, I spent the day with her at home because I didn’t want to leave her alone. Thankfully, it was a very warm day, so we spent much of our time together outside. She went back to the vet, and the doctor suggested that she stay in the hospital that night and get an ultrasound in the morning. Paul took her to the hospital while I went to class and the next morning we went to the hospital to get her and the ultrasound results. We weren’t expecting good news, but we thought that we’d be able to take her home with us for a while. The doctor didn’t think that it was a good idea to take her home, as she wasn’t stable. We had to make a decision that morning to put her to sleep, which we weren’t prepared for at all. it was such a blurred day. I stayed with Molly at the hospital while Paul picked ZZ up from school so he could say goodbye to her. Then Paul brought him back to school and afterwards returned to the vet. Paul and I spent some time with her before we decided that it was time. The actual process went more quickly than I expected, and it was so hard watching her die.
There are so many layers to my grief–the fact that she’s not with us anymore, the fact that we didn’t have the opportunity to spend quality time with her before she died, and the fact that we were with her when she died. We have her ashes, a tuft of her fur, and a paw print in ceramic. I’m not sure what we’re going to do with the ashes. For the foreseeable future we will keep them with us.
Molly was my companion for almost 11 years. During the first two years we spent much of our days together. I wrote my dissertation and she hung out with me. We took walks together, ran errands in the car together, etc. When we drove places, she would lie down in the passenger seat and put her head in my lap. it made working the stick shift difficult, but it was so nice to have her head on me. After I started working full time we spent less time together, and that has always been a source of guilt, but we’ve tried to spend as much time with her as we would over the years and she slept with us every night.
I miss her very much.
