A Babbling Goodbye to Molly

Molly the dog.

Molly died.

I kept her home for her last few days. The last thing she did was to go outside to pee about three in the morning, after that recent lunar eclipse that had so many people enchanted. She'd quit eating and almost quit drinking in those last days, so she was very weak, but she took her business outside. After she finished, she began walking aimlessly for a few seconds, then she went down. Not all the way, just down in a sphinx position with her nose almost touching the ground.

I figured it was time, because of the way she collapsed, but I still kept hoping. If she would just eat something, if she would just get some strength back, maybe she could get over this. 



I petted her and talked to her, and she got to her feet again, but not for long. She laid down on her side, and her breathing slowed, and her fierce little heart finally quit beating. I watched her slip away into forever under a hazy moon, in the big backyard that had been her world, her little kingdom that she had kept safe from deer and squirrels and other intruders.

When it was over, I wrapped her in a clean white towel and picked her up. When I stood, her head rolled back over my arm. Something about the limpness of her body drove home to me how really gone she was. I pulled her head up and cradled it against my chest, and I carried her to the back porch. I'd already dug a grave at my mother's place, and there was nothing left to do but wait for sunrise so I could lay her body to rest.

How do you kill a couple of hours while waiting to bury a beloved pet? I just stared at the clock. Every now and then I'd go out to look at her again. I was still hoping. Maybe she would gasp and cough and start breathing again. Maybe she'd eat something so she could get strong and healthy again. The maybes ticked through my mind like the minutes ticking away on the clock, but they didn't happen. Molly was gone.

Not long after I took Molly in, when she was a growing puppy.

I keep thinking about how we met. When I lived in Irving, Texas, my home became a magnet for stray dogs. Some of them I found homes for. A few of them I kept. Molly showed up one hot day as I was getting home. While unlocking the front door, I set a large cold drink down on the porch. When I turned around to pick it up, there was a white and black puppy licking the condensation off the cup. She was so thirsty, and she was so glad to get inside and get a decent drink of water.

You probably wouldn't have liked Molly much. She wasn't mean, but she was very stand-offish with people. What she really enjoyed was going outside and roughousing with my two grown dogs. She'd run them ragged, getting them to chase her and then hiding behind a lawn mower or something where they couldn't get at her. A few seconds later, she'd burst out of hiding and lead them on another chase.

Molly and her best friends several years ago. Blackjack on the left, Rocky on the right. Rocky is the only one of this pack still alive.

She was one of the fastest, most energetic dogs I've ever known. It was hard to see her lying so still now, to see all that life and liveliness gone.

She was one of those dogs who cocks their head back and forth when you talk to them, as though they're trying to understand what you're saying. It was funny to watch. Molly mostly slept her last few days, but the day before she died, she sat up and looked at me. I spoke some comforting words, and she cocked her head to the side. It was the last time I saw that sweet gesture.

She did some barking on her last day, too. I like to think she was warning the deer and squirrels one more time. Or maybe the scorpions. I had a lot of scorpions in my house the last few years, and Molly had learned how to spot them. She'd alert me when she saw one and watch as I dispatched the intruder. She earned many treats for her sentry work.

Molly loved to play fight.

If you're reading this, you know what I'm babbling about here. And why. You've been there too, trying to accept a death, trying to accept that this happened and can't be undone. It was hard, because I was so tired. I slept next to her the last few days. She'd never been a real cuddly dog, but she snuggled up tight against me as her life faded, and I had to sleep lightly to avoid disturbing her. I didn't get a good sleep until after I had buried her.

It's probably not healthy to sleep that close to a sick animal, but it made her feel better. A little risk and tiredness was a cheap price to pay.

She's not the only found hound in my life, and some of them won't be around long. They're getting old, and soon it will be time to dig their graves, to wrap them in a clean white towel and lay them to rest. Like Molly, they'll be buried at my mother's place with a Texas sage bush to mark the spot. Those bushes bloom around this time of year, just as autumn's setting in. There's something nice about seeing those flowers appear just before the year turns cold and dark. They remind me that even though a single life ends, life itself keeps going.

There will be other lonely puppies who need a home. There will be more laughs and smiles.

It seems to me that's the only way to deal with death, whether it's a person who's died or "just a dog". You mourn for a while, then you embrace the life that remains. The mourning part is never easy. You have to take the pain and just keep remembering that it will fade with time. You have to watch the minutes tick away on the clock and know that each minute brings you a little closer to the time when you can handle it, when you don't have to struggle to be a big boy about it, when you don't have to worry about a surprise rush of tears that you don't want other people to see. So I sit here watching the clock, writing my thoughts, waiting for the sun to rise and life to begin again.

Good bye, Molly. You were a good dog.

Molly's grave.