Molly

I had begged and begged and begged Larry for a puppy.  He had brought a beagle puppy home when we lived in Richmond, but he was sick and barked all the time and we didn't keep him long.

So when I was eight or nine, after much persuasion, Larry brought Molly home.  Already named, so we wouldn't argue over what to call her.  If I remember right, he showed up at the front door one night in November.  And we all had to walk around to the basement door to let them in.  She'd just been spayed and couldn't climb steps.

I remember the six of us sitting in a circle in one of the rooms in the basement and Larry took her leash off. I sat cross legged and just waited as Molly cautiously checked all of us out.  And then picked me.   She walked tenderly over to my lap and curled in the space between my belly and my legs.

This morning, mom and Abby took Molly to Dr. Fred and they had her put down.  She had lost almost half of her body weight, had tumors, had lost the vision in her left eye, and kept getting stuck in corners.  Olivia thinks she paced the hallways because Molly was afraid if she laid down, she wouldn't get back up.

I've cried more today than I have in years.  I didn't realize how much I loved that dog.  Or how much I would resent myself for not being there when the last few minutes came.

She is buried now, underneath the swing in the back yard.  I got a text from Olivia this morning saying, "this is a real childhood home now, we have a pet buried in the back yard."  Damn any extra emotional attachment to that house.

I am the most selfish of people.  I cry even as I write this, knowing that only half of these tears are for my pet.  There is no way I could have been there.  No way I could have driven her to Richmond and then driven her body home and dug up the dirt to bury her.  I don't have it in me for that kind of grief.

But Abby did.  My sixteen year old sister who doesn't remember the house on Long Avenue without our little, whining beagle mix.  Abby was strong enough to get in the car and drive mom and Molly to Dr. Fred's.  She was strong enough to drive them home.  Strong enough to bury her in the back yard.  This is not the first time I've wished I was like my little sisters.  And it won't be the last.

I'm hating myself right now for not being there.  I am the one Molly picked that first day. My lap is the one she chose.  More often than not, she chose my bed.  She hated me for a long time when I moved out.  But more often than not, she would curl up against me when I cried.  I had no idea I was so attached until the tears came this morning.

Today I am thinking about what it means to make decisions about the quality of life.  The difficult, heart-wrenching decision between life and death.  Those decisions we make on a daily basis, and the circumstantial decisions, which alter the course of your entire life.  A choice between two options.  Maybe three.  So often, none of them feel like the right one.

The choice between life and death are not always so literal, so clear.  The metaphor is a strong one.  But when it is literal... the sting is sharper.

It would rain today.  I would have been surprised if it hadn't.  Rain, he said, washes everything away.

I dread the next trip to Winchester.  I can't imagine how my sisters and mother must feel.  Fifteen years is a long time for your ears to be filled with whining and the scratching of toenails on the floor and dog hair to be caught in your clothes.  But I've always had this different experience.

The being away and the coming back.

I didn't live there when he moved out.

I didn't live there when they brought that new, black puppy home that I still don't get along with.

I didn't live there when he moved in.

The next time I am there, I will have to go sit on the swing.