Soon

Last evening and night were heavy.  A late phone call from a friend with an older cocker spaniel was soothing.  She knows Molly.  And me.  My daughter's lovely mother-in-law.  I call her friend.  Our family's are entwined.

I don't want to get out of bed.  Tired. Weary.  Knowing what this day will bring. It is an exceedingly long walk to the utility room where Molly has slept for a lot of her life. It wasn't long ago that she and Jessy slept in my bed.  I loved feeling their warmth.  They would sleep on either side of me. Always so tight that I was nearly in a straight jacket.

As I find the way to my dogs, I notice both are standing up.  A relief of sorts.  Molly is unstable on her feet now.  She carefully takes the stairs ahead of me.  She wants this.  I want her to have whatever she needs to ease her passage.  Outside she sniffs the perimeter of the yard.  As though for one last time.  She loved being out here.  Only the other day she caught the ball.  Oh, how she loved playing catch.  She could play it for hours.  Rarely missed the ball.

Her thirst is excessive.  She knows.  She is nervous and I must be the calm one.  My sadness is more than I can manage.  But I will manage this as I have in the past.  Molly was my heart.  Is.

Our time together is drifting away.  I see all the ways I tried to control things in the past.  I can't control my heart. The vet believes that other major organs are failing as revealed by laboratory blood  testing.  She thinks this is a brain tumor.  That she will continue to seizure, continue to damage her major organs. 

Molly licks Jessy as she has done for twelve years.  But Jessy knows.  She separates herself on the carpet by the back door.  She knows she will be alone. 

Soon.