Wow. It's interesting the way your day can change from 8 am to 8 pm.
Yesterday morning, I had received the news that I got the job that I have been wanting pretty much all summer. I finally felt relief and excitement, and even pride that at my age I had made it this far.
That's when I got the call from my mom saying she felt that after 15 and a half years, it was time for our sweet Molly to leave us.
Molly was our Belgian Shepard. We had gotten her 15 years ago, when she was only 11 weeks old. I remember driving to the Culver City area with the whole family on the way to the breeders. My sister and I were told we could name her. Since we were obsessed with Days of Our Lives at the time and our favorite character was Molly, the name seemed fitting.
She was black sweet cuddly love of a dog. She always had a ton of energy, sometimes too much where she would nip other dogs and even some human butts. We tried training but to no avail. Molly was just Molly, with her quirks and her spastic energy. No matter what, she always was loving.
We had three dogs at the time. Mikey, Molly, and Mandy. Mikey was adorable as well, a loving Golden Retriever. Mandy was a rescue dog, a French hound, who was not so nice and sweet, and poor Molly got the brunt of it. Over time, we had to let bot Mikey and Mandy go to doggy heaven - Mikey got incredibly sick and Mandy also got very arthritic and was in pain. That meant Molly got all the love! And what kind of love - more than any dog I know.
My mom loved Molly many times more than she loved anyone else. She would be fed only the best human meals, with different meats that my mom would cook for her before she would cook dinner for her
husband. It was so cute, my mom and Molly, how they would be attached to eachother, literally never going into one room without the other one following behind. Although I have to say Molly was usually following.
The last couple of years have been hard for Molly. She always had bad hips and bones, but in her years of age she started to really show difficulty. On top of that, my mom moved twice due to remodeling and a fire in the last year and a half which no doubt was stressful for Molly. But she had still been managing, although it was difficult.
These last couple of days have been really difficult for my mom and Molly. She couldn't go on long walks, because in the middle of them she would just fall to the ground - without any energy to keep walking, her poor muscles couldn't handle it. She would drag her back legs and walk with such a limp. My mom would put down her food and she would have a hard time even getting to the food, and when she was eating she would have to do it almost laying down.
My mom has always been a wonderful mother - that's why she knew that yesterday should be Molly's last day. I went to her house and was there with some other family and friends - my mom called it her support circle. For a few hours we talked about Molly, pet her, hugged her, loved her. My mom fed her a filet mignon - her first - as a "last meal". The veterinarian came to the house - thank God for that - talked to us for a bit, and my mom finally made the decision that she was ready.
Molly was calm, as it was done in our living room with her family there to hug and love her. She was put to a deep sleep when we left the room for the procedure to actually be done.
Yesterday was probably one of the hardest days in my life. I loved Molly so much, and really bonded with her in the last two years. But more than that, I know how much my mom loved her, and to see my strong mother break down the way she did yesterday, over and over, about how she was losing her best friend, was one of the more difficult things for me. I had to take my sadness for Molly out and be strong for my mom. She felt so helpless and sad, and looked at me in my eyes over and over needing some justification for the way she felt. But we knew that this was the right thing, so that our sweet Molly could die with dignity.
The sadness really hit me last night - C and I went to dinner and it was all I could think about. When I got home I went into my room and broke down. I needed to really cry - I had been holding most of it in all day. I couldn't sleep last night, her image just kept popping up in my mind.
But I feel better today, and so does my mom. We know that Molly is in a better place with no pain, and filet mignon for every meal. And she knows that we loved her so much, and only made the decision out of love.
R.I.P. Molly. I love you. 
