The End: Part Two

November 18, 2011: Molly's Party

On the last night of Molly's life, Spencer Harrison, Jennifer Backler, Sylvia Davis, Jay Gemmil, John Hutchison, Jane Saracino and Debra Appleton all came by to say goodbye.

Spencer brought people food (chicken and cheese sauce) and Molly believed she had already died and gone to heaven. We watched for signs of barfing, but there were none.

Molly always liked Jay best, and settled next to him...

... when she wasn't trying to get to the food on the coffee table.

Then she grew weary of the festivities and went to bed as a bit of a hint to the guests.

November 19, 2011: Molly's Last Day

I felt conflicted at the vets the week before when he told me Molly could live another year or two. That conflict raged anew on several fronts the day we put her down.

There were two tough moments for me before we even got to the vet. Getting ready to go, I was coming down the stairs to the dining room and felt a powerful aversion to carrying through what we'd decided to do. "Don't do it!" said something inside of me. And something else said, "No, she's not going to get better, she's not going to suddenly start having fun again. Do it."

The other moment was when I tugged on her bed to bring it closer so I could get her into her harness.  Molly leaned back - she didn't want to go. That just killed me.

Brent, reliable to the very last walk, arrived at 8:15 on the dot. He carried Molly, and Bruce and I walked on either side of him, the two blocks to the vet's. Twenty feet from the door, he put Molly down on the ground. She had a light-coloured goopy poo thanks to the rich food she'd had the night before.

For the last time in my life, I cleaned up after my dog with a plastic baggie.

Molly hung back at the door to the vet's office and one of us - I can't recall who - picked her up and carried her in.

At the counter was a middle aged couple with a nice little dog. They saw Molly and smiled and said "aw..." and then they saw our faces and they didn't say anything more.

The vet ushered us into a small, comfortably appointed room. He explained what he was going to do, something about a catheter. I wasn't really paying attention because I was worried about whose lap Molly should be in when it happened. I thought Bruce's lap would be better than mine because she liked him best and I wanted her to be most comfortable and least anxious at the moment when it happened and I got tangled up in the blanket the vet had given me and I was having trouble standing up and handing Molly to Bruce and I felt a little dizzy and had to lean against the wall and oh god I just wanted this to be over but oh god I didn't want it to happen at all.

I finally settled down standing across from the small couch where Bruce and Brent were seated, with Molly on Bruce's lap. The vet uncapped the syringe and I wanted to yell "stop!" For sixteen years I had protected Molly's life. Part of me reeled in disbelief and horror that I could possibly have ordered her death.

I know the moment when Molly died because I felt it in my own body. I watched the vet's hands and saw the plunger on the syringe move and felt a little separated from what was going on because Brent had bent his head down to be close to Molly so I couldn't see her at all and then I felt a pain in my heart as though something that had been there for a long time was suddenly gone. 

And then I started to cry.

*******

I knew from the first "look at the cute doggie" commotion Molly caused that we had to share her. 

This is Molly's last gift to the world.

Thanks for reading this short tale about my small dog. I have another blog, This Week's Picture, that started in 2004 as emails about Molly. In 2012, after Molly was gone, I began posting weekly, not about Molly, but kind of in memory of her. You can find it here.