It was a long time coming but still hard to watch. She had been very sick in January, revealed to be the result of a brain condition, and we were told then she’d be lucky to last a month, but steroids made her rambunctious again and we eked out another ten months with her.
There had been a few times she’d been sick since then, and my brother and I joked this evening, as my parents drove her to the crematory, about how those scares made it clear it is not the nature of either of our parents to nuture. Every time Molly had a cold, my parents thought it was the death knell. Every time my brother and I were insistent she had to go the vet, my parents thought it was the sniffles. This last illness was no different—she walked like a four-legged drunk and stopped eating, but my parents thought it was a cold. Last night my parents realized how bad it was and this morning my mother went to the vet to get some steroids and antibiotics to see if it would help. I woke up around noon and could tell that it was the end, and called both my parents to come from work. She died three hours later on their bed, with them. They are, to put it mildly, devastated, but take comfort in that she was with those that loved her, and it couldn’t have been better for her.
But I will still miss her. She was sweet and she was the only dog I have ever loved. It is still hard.
