A Girl Called Sophie & Our Story of Loss, Recovery and Renewal

Years before losing Molly we talked about taking a trip across America to help distance ourselves from what we knew would be an agonizing experience.

Never make plans for something you will do when your life gets so tangled and pain ridden you can barely walk out the door, let alone drive cross-country.  You think you know how you’ll feel, but you don’t.  Only days before we lost Molly, my 100-year-old Mom, a powerful force until her last breath, left this world forever. Few could have kept me from being by Molly’s side in her final hours, but of course I was with my family so I never got to say good-bye.   We are blessed with an incredibly dear friend who helped my husband through an anguish even his worst nightmares could not imagine.  Neither of us will ever forget what she did for us those days when we were simply lost.

If you have a pet, especially if you’re retired, you know the pain when that light in your life goes out.  She was the joy that made us laugh, the exercise we needed, she gave us a reason to walk up the street, talk to people we might otherwise never meet.  She was our responsibility when there seemed to be none left.  She needed us; we needed her.  It’s extraordinary that a little white fluff of a being can walk into your heart, leave footprints all over it and when she’s gone it feels like the earth has swallowed you up, spat you out and you’ll just never ever be able to stop the tears from falling. 

That was early May and nothing went as planned.  Instead I poured over the Internet searching for exotic places to run to.  We rented a condo on Fernandina Beach just to go somewhere that wouldn’t remind us of Molly … so brave, so sick at the end, never letting us know until those last few weeks.  We escaped the deafening silence, the echo of our voices, the loss of laughter, the endless tears.

“It’s only a dog” … only a dog; it’s only my heart, my arm, my leg, our joined souls.  We were inconsolable.  When I began talking about another dog, my husband couldn’t bear it.  He felt no dog could ever measure up to Molly, that we’d be scarring her memory by bringing another dog into our home, into our hearts.

Before Molly we had 3 wonderful cats.  When our last cat, Sammie, left us 6 years ago, we still had Molly.  For 40 years there were at least four paws on the floor.   Now there were none.  I couldn’t do it.

So it began …. the gentle nudge.  He was steadfast.  He felt we needed the freedom to do whatever we wanted.   But all I wanted was to hold a dog in my arms and in my heart.  I ‘googled’ and found shelters, read horrifying stories of puppy mills, surrendered and abused dogs rescued from indescribable surroundings.  My Facebook’s feed is filled with more dog shelters than it is with friends.

Molly was everywhere, we found her in clouds, we saw rainbows more beautiful than ever before and all this nourished us and helped us heal.  So in early July when I saw a picture of a little dog called Rosie, I had a feeling.  I don’t know what it was about her. I wanted a little Yorkie-type dog, or a Shih Tzu.  But instead along came this funny looking dog with crooked ears looking out at me with huge eyes that seemed a tiny bit sad, but somehow beckoning.

I’ll always wonder what drew me to her.  On the 4^th of July I talked Ray into going with me and he knew we were in trouble.  Here was little Rosie, with a poodle sort of body and a funny little face with an under-bite.  She was energetic, happy, loving.  She jumped from my lap to Ray’s; so well adjusted considering she’d been in shelters the past few months.  Just 2 years old, she’d been turned into a shelter many miles south of us just days before Molly died.

 “What should we do?”  … “We should take her home”.  That sounds like the end of the story, but it was only the beginning.  We‘d been stuck and little Rosie, who we called Sophia Rose, unstuck us.  This little ‘holy terror’ came into our home and bounced off the walls.  I wanted her out of here, I felt worse than I thought I could ever feel.  I experienced guilt, remorse, and panic.  Who was this stranger? I didn’t want another dog … I just wanted Molly back.

But then I looked down at her lying on my chest, eyes closed, so blissfully content.  She was where she was meant to be.  Sophie came into our lives, made us laugh and certainly made us love again.  As much as she misbehaves, every day we learn that in her “other life” she’d been trained.  We slowly learn the words and gestures that she quickly recognizes. She began by taking up a small space; soon she filled the empty hole in our lives.

We still see Molly in the clouds; the sun rises and sets, tides ebb and flow, babies are born, people fall in love.  The hardest part of life is losing someone we love.   For a time we can’t move.  But there is a strength that gathers, lifts us up and we land firmly on our feet.  For us, it took a girl named Sophie  … or maybe Molly worked her magic because she never liked seeing us cry. 

Whatever it was there’s always a way back, time and space will always take us there.

With Love & Memories,

Molly & Sophie's Mom