Today, we took the longest drive with Molly. Today we put her to rest.

We’d been tackling structural problems with Molly for several months, and after many exams to see what could be going on, she stabilized. However, she started having other problems, and we started looking into what was join on.

On Friday, we took Molly into the vet, and had a specialist do a sonogram on her. The news wasn’t good. She had an inoperable tumor that was taking up half her bladder, along with creeping into other parts of her. Essentially, we were talking about days of time left before she would descend into a really painful life.

After talking with the vet Friday, we set an appointment for this afternoon to let her go, and avoid the pain and suffering that was just around the corner. By far, this was the hardest thing I’ve had to do since Dad died almost ten years ago.

So today, Becky and I took her to the vet, and sat with her while she slipped away. It really was as peaceful as the vet described, and she just slowly went to sleep on my foot, eventually leaving us.

This afternoon’s been really tough, with four fewer big paws stomping around the house. We know she’s better off though, as what was in front of her was miserable and agonizing.

There’s an old Swiss saying: “Three years a puppy, three years a good dog, three years an old dog. All else is a gift from God.” With Molly, we had all that, but for us, it was 3,604 days as a gift from God.