Foley's Tails From Rainbow Bridge - Molly the Relunctant Angel

 

I have been at the Bridge, performing my duties as a judge, including swearing in new members, for 13 years. You would think a dog transitioning to the Bridge would not surprise me, but when Molly the Airedale passed I was stunned.

I knew our friend was suffering from dementia, which manifested itself by causing her to chew her paws, to the point that they were bloody and raw. My last contact with her was last Tuesday when she helped her Mommy make something delicious, and then, after a period with no paw chewing, Molly began again.

I planned on checking with Molly with a group of angels the next morning to try and encourage her not to chew, but only one angel appeared, Molly’s brother Mitch, and when I saw him, I knew Molly was on her way.

Molly, appeared, on the ghost side of the River of Life, near the Bridge, which she had to cross, or be sentenced to an eternity on the mortal side, where she would appear as a ghost, but never know love again, which is why Mitch ran over to the other side, and brought his sister to the immortal side.

We could both tell that Molly for the first time in months that she could think clearly and wanted to go back, even if it meant taking back all the pain and going back to existing in the fog that had plagued her in the final days.

“I pledged to my mom that I would never leave her,” a teary-eyed Molly insisted. “For richer and poorer, through sickness and in health.”

“You are forgetting the words added to the pet version, first to death do us part, followed by ‘and after that,” I explained. This was just a pause in the mother and dog relationship, and when they are reunited the worries and illnesses that had plagued them would be gone, and there is nothing ahead but joy.

Molly nodded, but her thoughts were on her mom, who had lost much more than a dog: A friend, a therapist, a companion, a soul mate, and the one constant in her life, always home, waiting to see her, exploding with joy each time she got home, and keeping the love flowing between them. Without Molly, that love, which always needs to move, stagnates in her, causing crippling pain.

It was Mitch who told Molly why she had to go to the Bridge. “If Mom only had one dog in her life, it wouldn’t be either of us, and we would have lived sad, long lives. But, by cutting down our life spans, we give other dogs the chance to love our mom. It is our gift to other dogs.”

Molly nodded, understanding her situation, and slowly accepting it. Mitch told her there were two important duties before her: One was to find a new dog for their mom so that the love stuck inside her could move again, and the other was to play like puppies.

They began zooming together like they had when they were kids.

For every passing, there is a reunion, which is as happy as the passing is sad.

Their running together was a sign of better days to come.

I hope for Molly’s mom the better days come quickly and ease the greatest pain of all.

It is dark now, but light and happiness always win.

At least on the immortal side.