The Grief I Deserved

I used to low-key judge 'pet people'.

When a coworker would miss work or dash out crying because their pet was dying or needed surgery, I’d be sympathetic, of course, but I remember thinking to myself, it's just an animal, it ain't that deep.

You see, I'd never really experienced pet death before. I did have a cat die when I was a kid - I later learned my father had something to do with it - but there was already so much else happening to me that I never really grieved her.

Anyway, when I met my husband, we were firmly on the same page. "I don’t want any more pets, I don’t want any more kids, and I don’t want a white picket fence and meatloaf every Sunday kind of life,“ he said.

Amen, I thought. Where do I sign?

Fast-forward to today: We have all of that shit now.
And I mean that with all the love in the world, but that is our current reality.

When our daughter was in high school, he surprised me with, "I’m ready for another dog.” This, from a man who’d spoken about his last one with the kind of reverence usually reserved for fallen comrades in war.

Before I knew him, his dog's death had devastated him, and he’d sworn for years he wouldn’t go through that again. But now he was ready, and so we adopted our Nala. Half-husky, half terrier, fully allergic to almost everything.

Seriously—this is a dog on prescription food, special shots, the whole shebang, and she still drops gas that can clear a building. We’ve tried everything. Probiotics. Pumpkin. Meds. Hydrolyzed protein. Nothing helps.

She’ll stare you dead in the face while you’re eating and let one rip that makes you question if love really is unconditional.

She was wild as a June bug at first, bolting through doors and chewing through furniture, but she mellowed out with time and training. She’s loyal, sweet, watchful, and adores my husband.

She was our only pet for many years.
And then came Molly.

My brother-in-law died tragically after years of addiction and self-neglect. They found his body in his apartment after a welfare check, but there was no sign of his precious Molly.

She was eventually found cowering behind a toilet. She’d hidden there the entire time, terrified while strangers trickled in and out.

The plan was to give her to my mother-in-law, who’d wanted Molly as one last connection to her son. But naturally, someone in the family had a problem with that, because, of course, they did.

Before that could be resolved, we found out my mother-in-law had late-stage cancer. She never got to say goodbye to her son, and she never got to even hold his cat.

So Molly became ours and had her reasons to be wary. She came to us filthy, matted, hungry, and scared.

She didn’t scratch or bite, but she made it clear from the jump: don’t test me.

I should’ve known from the start what we were in for. We tried to drive her home in a crate like responsible adults. But she Houdini'd her way out of that crate twice before we'd even gotten out of the neighborhood.

So we gave up, and she curled up under my legs for the entire seven-hour drive. That was Molly in a nutshell: always determined to do things her way.

At the time, we were empty nesters, and I worked from home. So I gave her plenty of space; I just fed her, said hello, let her be, and went about my day.

Then one day, she started following me around. Soon she was everywhere, threading herself around my ankles or curling up at my feet while I worked, taking in her new environment.

And then one night, she jumped into my lap (uninvited) and curled up for a nap. From that moment on, she was mine.

I say that because she tolerated my husband, bless his heart (I think all the sneezing had something to do with it...and between us, why do all dads sneeze like they're being exorcised?).

But she kept everyone else at bay.

Nala, bless her gentle heart, wanted to be friends, but Molly would hiss at her like it was her job. And Nala would retreat, dejected, which broke my heart.

So there for a while I was that woman; you know, the one with the mean cat that everyone hated? Yeah, that was me. That was us.

Molly was a fat, grumpy mess who destroyed furniture and woke me at 5 a.m. sharp, demanding food as if the kibble already in her bowl was beneath her.

She was also annoyingly smart. If I ignored her, she’d shimmy under my bed and push with all she had. And she was a big’un, so my bed vibrated like a tuning fork.

My daily wake-up call was a reminder: "I own you."

And she did.

She loved open windows. Even in winter, if the sun was hitting just right, she’d wedge herself into the sill and zone out for hours.

At night, she’d sleep on the floor by my side of the bed, but every chance she could (especially when my husband was away on business), she’d jump into bed with me like it was her rightful place.

And I’d sigh, knowing I’d have to wash everything before he got back because of his allergies, but I let her stay anyway. She'd act pretty smug about it, too.

She’d only sit on my lap if we were alone. If anyone walked in, she’d leap off like no one can ever see me be loving!

And she'd grind her teeth all the time, making this little sound you could only hear when it was really quiet. Like tinnitus, but weirder.

She was also strangely healthy until the day she just...stopped eating.

The vet said her liver was failing, and they didn’t know why, but it was already looking very dire for her.

I asked the vet what she would do if it were her cat. “Get her tested,” she said.

Hindsight is always 20:20 - I should've just taken her home. I felt it in my gut when the vet ended with a heartfelt “I’m so sorry”.

I saw it in Molly's eyes when I got her back home. I heard it in the voice in my head: Take the pictures. Get the cuddles. This is it. This is the last time.