mollie

mollie is eight weeks old, and for the moment, thank God is sleeping.

this should last for at least four minutes before she goes back to chewing something to pieces. chewing something is better than what she does when she is neither chewing or sleeping, which is generally trying to turn our cream colored carpet into mellow yellow, a task to which she seems utterly dedicated.

i think her urinary tract must be attached to her lungs. inhale, urinate, inhale, urinate. inhale, urinate.

ok, so that’s an exaggeration. not that i’m exaggerating about her frequency of urination, but about her frequency of inhaling.

captain’s log, stardate 0129.2005: mollie’s first day at home
    mollie arrives home
    mollie drinks 3 ounces of water
    mollie runs to the carpet and squats
    jeanne screams, grabs mollie, and bolts outside
    mollie dumps 6 gallons on the snow
    jeanne brings mollie inside
    mollie drinks 3 ounces of water
    crew stuck in infinitely looping quantum time warp

i have no idea how Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish, but after watching mollie multiply water, any doubts have been washed away.

it has become apparent to me that mollie is a potential solution to extended drought and creeping deserts. just send her to the sahara with a gallon of water strapped to her back – and she’ll have the place completely flooded within a few years. if they'd send her to arrakis before the spice is discovered, it would save frank herbert from having to write all those dune books.

oxford dictionary mollie: noun
   (1) a popular aquarium fish;
   (2) an efficient device for water production in epic proportions.

so why put up with all this drama? because of cassie, i think. because cassie lived with us for 14 years… until two weeks ago… and we had become hopelessly dogified.

two days before jeanne and liz found mollie, someone asked jeanne why we were seeking a new puppy. her immediate response: because we have a dog-shaped hole in our hearts.

losing cassie was harder than we’d ever imagined.

i am finding that deaths get harder for me as i get older. any death i experience brings back every other death. people that are close to me, and people that are close to other people. sometimes i officiate at funerals for people i've never met. so it's not my own personal grief that i feel. yet looking into the faces of those who loved that person is so hard. i feel drawn into that dark, empty space. the grief is so close, so raw, and i find myself falling into that abyss with them.

i used to wonder why Jesus wept at lazarus' tomb. he knew full well what He was about to do. he had already hinted to his disciples that something astonishing and incredible was about to occur. he knew full well that just ten minutes hence, lazarus would arise, walk among them, and join everyone in the typical post-funeral feasting on cassaroles and thinly sliced honey ham.

yet Jesus wept. even for people of hope, people of the resurrection, there is weeping at death. this is all so subjective, but i sometimes wonder whether being a person of faith and hope doesn't permit one to feel the grief that much stronger. the faith and hope might, perhaps, give one the freedom to let down the barriers, to look death full in the face, to experience all of the grief, down to the last drop. i have no idea whether that's true, but i do know this: being a person of faith and hope doesn't diminish the depths of the grief one whit. she had been part of our family for half our married life, and more than two-thirds of our daughters' lives, and losing cassie was harder than we’d ever imagined.

so it wasn't really all that surprising to discover that while we laughed at mollie playing in the snow today, we talked incessently about cassie. we may always miss her. so why all the drama about water production and chewing and carpets? because mollie is teaching our broken hearts that they can live and love again. and that's some drama we really need.

if we don’t drown first under all mollie’s relentless flooding.



the Lord be with you