A new beginning

It's been a little over a month since our sweet Molly left us, and I have been mulling the decision of getting a new puppy for the last couple of weeks. I wasn't sure if we were ready until this week. I had been scouring Craigslist and shelter websites for a puppy that might fit our desires and our lifestyle. We still wanted a similar breed, but we didn't want the new puppy to look too much like Molly.

On Saturday we found our new baby. Jon drove a little over an hour to pick her up from a woman who had a total of eight Great Pyrenees/Dalmation mix puppies that she was giving away.

While she is a bit younger than what we had expected (she's only 6 weeks old), she's adorable and we love her already. We've been trying to come up with a name and decided to go with 'Millie'. In a way it is our tribute to Molly, since the names are so similar.

It has been a rough few days with Millie as she has little control over her bladder and bowels. She wakes up about every hour and a half during the night to go out, but we have had relatively few accidents, probably because Jon and I have been watching her like a hawk.

She sleeps most of the day, maybe playing a total of 2 hours. But she's coming out of her shell as she becomes more comfortable with us. She's much less timid than Molly was. She's feisty but also loves to cuddle.

The first day we got her, I questioned the decision a bit, wondering if we truly were ready. And part of me felt sadness, as though the new puppy meant letting go of Molly for good. I felt a bit guilty, wanting this puppy and caring for her so soon after our loss. But, as we have had a few days with her, I have realized that we are moving on, but we will never 'let go' of Molly. She will always be with us in our hearts and our memories. I still get choked up writing and thinking about Molly, and I still miss her terribly when she makes her way into my thoughts. Millie will not replace Molly, but she will fill a void in our lives that has been empty for the last month, which will help in our journey of healing.

Acts of kindness

Today, after returning from our trip to California, we had a package from the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Science, which is where we took Molly when she died. Inside was a round clay imprint of Molly's paw that was decorated and had her name on it. The vet had asked us if we wanted them to send this to us the day we took Molly there, but I wasn't entirely sure what it was. It's beautiful and became instantly precious to me.

When I first opened it, I spent a few minutes looking over it, running my finger through the print and feeling the grooves and the shape of her little paw print. It was heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. It hurt knowing I would never feel her warm, delicate little paw again, but I am thankful to have this memento of her.

The vet school did not charge us for this special gift, and I can't say enough good things about our experience with them. Through one of the worst days of our lives, the people at the vet school did everything they could to help us cope and to find answers, and treated us with the utmost compassion and respect. They never made Jon or I feel like our pain was unwarranted or excessive. I'm not sure we can thank them enough.

I had a Molly moment...

That's what I call those times when something causes me to have an unexpected emotional reaction because of Molly. It could be anything; this time it was a video of a puppy on a rescue site. I've been looking into getting a new puppy because the desire is still there to have a puppy, but I know that we're not ready yet, both financially and emotionally. Today was proof of the emotional part.

I have seen several pictures of puppies in the last few days, none of which bothered me too much other than just tugging at my heartstrings. But today I was looking at a yellow lab puppy's profile and the foster owners included a video of him playing. I clicked on the video without ever thinking it might be a problem. After all, I've watched videos of her recently and didn't break down. But somehow this particular video just struck me, both because the puppy looked similar to Molly and did a lot of the same things Molly did. They aren't necessarily unique things (shaking her head back and forth when she had a toy in her mouth, jumping around, rolling on the ground), but it was enough to make me cry.

From that point it was like the floodgate had been opened again, although not as wide as a few weeks ago. My mind began playing through all the memories of Molly, like a video compilation in my head.

As hard as it is to bear sometimes, I actually appreciate these moments. I don't think about her much anymore, even though it's only been two weeks, but these moments force me to remember her and the things I loved about her. And although thinking of her may hurt, I am so thankful for the time I had with her that I am willing to endure the pain if it means I have those memories with her.

Below is a video of Molly and Bella playing in the living room. It's not much of a video, but I'm glad I have it.

Memories of Molly

It's been almost 2 weeks since we lost Molly, and Jon and I have healed quite a bit. On the outside, we look nearly identical to our former selves, but I know we, or at least I, am still a bit heavier inside than before. I don't think about her as much, and that's probably why it has gotten easier. The other day I allowed myself to really think about her, and it was like opening a floodgate that was difficult to close.

I think one of the most helpful things for us was hearing from the vet about the preliminary results of the necropsy last Friday. She basically told us that they couldn't determine a cause of death yet, but that they had ruled out quite a few things, including a reaction to the vaccine, heart attack, choking, swallowing of a foreign object and heat stroke. She said she believes it was probably something underlying and that we may never actually find out exactly what caused her death. She suggested it could have been an arrhythmia, stroke, blood clot or virus, among other things. While they still have some microscopic tests to do, basically everything that we could have been responsible for has been ruled out. I think knowing that we didn't cause her death, even indirectly, helps ease our pain considerably. A lot of my grief stemmed from the guilt I felt, thinking that there was something I could have done or shouldn't have done to save her.

I still miss her like crazy, but I want to share as many of the memories I have with her as I can so that I will never forget. In the grand scheme of my life she really was just a blip of time, but she was a much larger part of my heart and I want to pay tribute to that.

One of my favorite memories of her, but also one of the saddest for me to recall, is the way she would greet me when I came home from work or anywhere else. Most dogs come running to happily meet their owners when they return home, but Molly's way was particularly precious to me. Not because of anything she did necessarily, but just because of how she was. If she was upstairs, I could hear her and Bella racing down, Molly always lagging behind. They would come around the corner and, as soon as she saw me, her little ears would press back against her head, her mouth would open into a smile and her lanky tail, much too long for her small body, would wag as fast as she could manage. I would kneel down to greet her and she would jump  up with her paws on my thigh and lick my face as Bella pushed in to get in on the action. 

Sometimes when I get home, I walk up to the door thinking about how much I wish I could open the door and see that whole scenario play out just like it had several times before. Even though I know she's gone, it's still disappointing to open the door and not see her in the living room or hear her come stumbling down the stairs. 

Which reminds me of another memory: Molly and the stairs. 

Molly was always more timid than Bella was as a puppy, and the stairs just scared her to death the first few days we had her. We would go up or down the stairs, and she would sit at the top or bottom and just cry the most horrid cry I've ever heard. But she was instantly attached to Bella, and she trusted and looked up to Bella, so we used the connection to help get her over her fear. We would send Bella up or down the stairs to a few feet away from Molly and have her wait until Molly came to her. Then we would call Bella a little closer to us and wait for Molly to follow. It wasn't easy for her, nor was it easy for me to listen to her crying, but it worked pretty quickly.

After a day or two, we started going up or down the stairs and leaving Molly to do it on her own. She was still scared, especially without Bella there, but she wanted to be with us badly enough that she braved through it. By the end of her first week with us, she was traversing the stairs like a pro, with or without Bella. 

She wasn't with us for very long, but there are so many little things like these that she left us with. 

The day after

The day after the worst day of my life, Jon got up and went to work, and I woke up much earlier than usual around 8 a.m., which was depressing because it just gave me more time to think about it all before having to go to work around 3 p.m. I cried, then fell back asleep for a while. Then I woke up and repeated the process until I had to get ready to go to work. 

When I finally got up, I went downstairs to let Bella outside to go potty. The whole house felt dark and empty. I felt like I didn't live here. When I opened the sliding glass door to let Bella outside, I saw the spot where she died and I collapsed sobbing. Bella sniffed around the yard for a while before going to the bathroom, which she usually doesn't do. And when she sniffed the spot where Molly had been laying, my heart ached for her. I wanted so bad to be able to console Bella and explain to her what was going on, but I knew she wouldn't understand. I don't know if she realizes what happened to Molly, but she knows that her little friend is gone, and she knew for those first few days afterward that Jon and I were very sad. If we didn't have Bella, I don't know how I would have gotten through all of this.

Compared to the day before, Tuesday was much easier to get through because I at least had the distraction of work, but it was still incredibly hard. Being at work helped me control my emotions, but Molly definitely crept into my thoughts every now and then. I just threw myself into whatever I was doing as deeply as I could, trying to stay as busy as possible to distract myself. But I could feel the grief sitting like a lump in my stomach, and my chest still felt tight and heavy. I had to make a few trips to the bathroom just to collect myself and release some of the emotion that was churning inside me.

The second I was alone in my car and driving home, it all came crashing down again, and there was nothing left to distract me. That night and the next night I cried the whole drive home, asking God why he had taken her from me and telling him that I was angry with him for doing so. I kept saying it wasn't fair, that there are awful people who torture and neglect pets who live to endure the abuse for years, and yet Jon and I couldn't even have our angel Molly for a month. My drive home took me by the park where we had just taken her with Bella two days ago to go for a walk and some swimming in the pond. It was her first time swimming and she just loved running around with Bella. The whole walk, from our house to the pond and back, all flashed through my mind at once, and my heart just broke. I could picture every minute and remember how happy she was, and it just made me miss her more.

The last few days have gone by very slowly. Every day gets a little bit easier, which helps me get through it all. I don't cry nearly as much now, but my heart is still heavy and empty. It feels like a hollow shell of cold steel in my chest. Most of the time I feel like I'm walking underwater, and colors and tastes seem bland and unexciting. Things like sunshine and blue sky actually make me feel worse, knowing that Molly will never get to enjoy those things again, and that I will never get to enjoy them with her. I try to give Bella as much love as I can, but there's just not much to give yet. I think she understands. She hasn't asked to play very much and hasn't been eating much either.

I miss Molly tremendously, and sometimes it just doesn't seem real. Sometimes my mind tricks me, just for a second, that she's still here. Then I remember that day and her lifeless body, and all the pain floods back in.

The guilt has subsided a bit, though the results of the necropsy are pending and could potentially intensify the guilt, depending on what really caused her death. I just know that if anything that I remotely had control over caused her death, I will hate myself. I know that I loved her, and I keep reminding myself that we didn't do anything differently with her than we did with Bella, and Bella turned out great. But she was just so young and dependent on us that I can't help but feel responsible in some way.

I've lost pets before, but most of them were old and it made sense. It felt like they had truly lived and that it was just their time. But Molly was taken so suddenly and so soon that I just don't know how to accept it or deal with it. I know now, at least, that the pain and grief will get better with time, but I don't know if my heart will ever not hurt when I think about her.

Losing our precious Molly

Two days ago my husband and I lost our precious puppy Molly. She was only about 10 weeks old and was only with us for three weeks, but that was all it took for her to become a part of our family. We fell in love with  her from the moment we saw her, and her death has left a gaping hole in our hearts and our lives. It has been more difficult than I could have ever imagined, so I decided to start this blog to help in the healing process and to share the amazing memories Molly left us with in just three short weeks.

Her death was sudden and, as of now, unexplained. It was a Monday, June 27th to be exact, one of my usual days off, and I took her to the vet that morning to get her second puppy vaccine. She was happy and seemingly healthy. The vet was impressed by how well-behaved she was, and she sat in my lap during the car ride there and back. When we got home she was excited to see Bella, our 2-year-old lab/catahoula mix, and they played for about 20 or 30 minutes. I was tired that morning because I don't usually get up that early since I work late in the evenings, so I took a nap on the couch for about an hour and a half. While I napped, both dogs laid down and slept, as well, Bella on the carpet, Molly on the tile entryway.

I had an appointment that afternoon at the optometrist and couldn't leave Molly to roam the house while I was gone. It was already in the 90s by that point, and I didn't want to leave the dogs outside, so I brought Molly upstairs and put her in her crate. I went to my appointment, which took about an hour, and decided I would get my oil changed while I was already out of the house. I went to the service station and my car was done in about 30 minutes, at which point I went right across the street to Wal-Mart just to check and see what their selection of frames are and how the prices compare to the eye doctor.

I was on my way back home about 10 minutes later when I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. It was a local number though, so I decided to answer. It turned out to be Jon calling me frantically from a borrowed phone (he had left his at work) saying that he was at home for his lunch break and that Molly was lifeless. He said he had come home to find she had torn up one of our good towels while she was in the crate, which she usually did to act out. Jon picked her up, took her downstairs and gently tossed her outside to go to the bathroom (we would usually carry her down because sometimes she would pee before getting there if we let her walk on her own).

He was mad at her for getting ahold of one of our good towels, so it's possible she showed some signs of something being wrong and he just didn't notice, but it's also possible that she was totally fine at that point. Jon said he left her and Bella outside for about 15 or 20 minutes while he made and ate his lunch. When he went to let them back in, Molly was lying in the dirt not moving and was unresponsive. He said her gums and tongue were white and that he had tried CPR (the best he knew how, though it wasn't the proper method for dogs), but nothing was working. He said she wasn't breathing and he couldn't feel a heartbeat.

When I realized the gravity of the situation, I started panicking as well. I drove home as fast as I could, and ran inside about 5 minutes later to find Jon cradling Molly. I grabbed her and did basically everything Jon had done, checking for breathing and heartbeat and checking her throat for a blockage. I didn't try CPR at that point because I wasn't even sure how to do it and figured if Jon couldn't revive her then there was probably no point. I felt completely helpless. My advice to other dog owners is to learn how to do CPR on your pet, because you never know when you might need it.

We sat there for a few minutes grieving and trying to figure out what to do. Every so often my mind would convince itself that she was just sleeping in my arms, but when I shook her and she didn't move, it all became real again and hurt even more. I even felt her twitch a little at one point and my heart jumped for a second, but I soon realized that happens sometimes after death. I decided then that I couldn't just sit here and that we should take her to the vet to take care of the body. Once we got in the car and started driving to our vet, I realized the A&M vet school has an emergency center and is much closer than our vet, so we went there instead, part of my heart still clinging to the hope that maybe something could be done.

We arrived at the vet school and I carried her inside and told the lady at the counter that I was pretty sure my puppy had died and that we just didn't know where else to go. The emergency team came out and took her from me and asked us a bunch of questions about what we wanted them to do. At that point, I felt it better to assume that maybe we didn't know what we were doing and maybe, by some slim chance, her little heart was still beating and we just couldn't tell. So I gave them the OK to do CPR, not realizing it would cost me, and declined to have them crack her chest open because I thought that would be very expensive. As heartbroken as I was, I had to be realistic about the situation and our finances.

While they were doing CPR, they asked Jon and me some more questions about what happened. We explained to them everything that had happened that day and just couldn't come up with a definite cause. After maybe 10 or 15 minutes, they came back out and asked if we wanted them to continue CPR. I asked the doctor who was talking with us if she thought it was worth it, and she said she didn't think so. She said Molly's pupils were dilated and that she had been gone for a while now. After doing some research after the fact, I now know that even the CPR at the vet was pretty much useless because they will have brain damage after 20 minutes of being dead, which was probably about how long she had been gone by the time we got there. But when you're panicking like that and you have so much love for an animal, you're willing to try anything to save them. And I felt that if we didn't try everything we could, that my conscience would pay for it later. As expensive as it will be for the CPR, it was worth it for my peace of mind. I know that I tried everything I could to save her, and, despite the guilt I still feel, it helps.

Once we accepted that she was gone, the doctor took us into a room to discuss what to do with the body. As much as we would have loved to bury her somewhere, we don't own any land and didn't have anywhere to take her. Private cremation was another $100, which we just couldn't justify. We decided to allow them to do a necropsy, which they don't charge for (I'm assuming it's to encourage it because they are a research school), and general cremation, which was free because we are allowing them to do the necropsy.

The rest of that night was the most painful night I can ever remember. I have never cried that much or that hard, and I have never felt that guilty. I have never been more angry with God. And yet despite the whirlwind of emotions, I have never felt so numb. My home felt dark and depressing. I felt heavy and weak and a little shaky. Sometimes I would see something that would remind me of Molly, and I would just collapse into a sobbing pile of mush right on the spot. The grief was so strong that I often felt like vomiting, which never happened, probably because I hadn't eaten anything since earlier that morning.

I kept reviewing the day over and over in my mind, wishing I had come home earlier, wishing I had gone straight home after the eye appointment, wishing I had waited a few days to get her vaccine, wishing I hadn't left at all. I realize that I could never have predicted that this would happen, but anyone who has been in this situation will understand. You can't help but go over all the 'what ifs.' It was difficult getting to sleep that night. It was so hard to turn my mind off and to stop thinking about everything that happened that day. I couldn't stop picturing her playing with Bella, and then seeing her lifeless body in my mind. I kept asking why she was taken from us, saying that it just wasn't fair and that I felt so guilty. It's the most inconsolable grief I've ever felt, and it seemed so deep that I couldn't see myself ever coming out of it. I know it may sound crazy to some, such extreme emotions over a puppy. But our pets our like our children, and I felt like I had lost one of my babies that day. My only consolation in all of this was that Jon was there grieving with me, which helped knowing that someone else understood what I was going through.

I don't know how I ever got to sleep that night, and I was afraid of what the next day would hold.