Pat found Molly on a dirt road in the country a year or so ago.  She was just sitting in the middle of the road, lost.  Someone had abused her. kicked her teeth in.  She had a broken rib and open sores.  And of course, Pat picked her up and brought her to me.  Healing began.  

Over the last year she learned a number of things.  Sit, come, get in your crate,  let me put your leash  on you. Get in the car.  She would bark to go outside.  But she wasn’t always obedient when we would walk on a leash...too many things to discover and sniff.

Every morning, I look for her, then remember she is gone.  She was  my friend.  She liked for me to talk to her and would cock her head from one side to the other as if she knew what I was saying.  Giving into me was a really big deal because she was so independent.  But she chose...chose...to do the things I asked her to do.  She chose me.  I was loved.

She is now in charge of the dogs in heaven.  She has probably rounded them up and is explaining how things should be done.  And she has her eye on the gate...waiting on me.

On Monday, I took Molly to the groomer on a leash.  As we were going in, she  broke loose, ran into a main throughway and was killed instantly.  My heart is breaking.  I still haven’t been able to stop crying.  When I wake up in the morning, I reach for her on my feet and she isn’t there and I start to weep.

She was just a puppy, undisciplined, but learning.  She had decided in the last few months that she trusted and loved me and would curl up every night at 6:00 and go to sleep with her head under my chin, snuggled up against my chest.  At peace.

She was a rescue--when Pat brought her to me ,she had been beaten, had broken ribs, scars, and wounds.  She was scared, leery of people, hiding in corners...but slowly, love brought her around.  She was a mess....and I loved her.  She didn’t want to go to the groomer, asserted herself, ran in the road and it was all over in a second.  I picked her up and she was lifeless.  Limp.  Molly was gone and my heart is broken.   There are animals in heaven.  Lambs and Christ is coming on a horse.  Molly will be trotting beside Him, looking for me.

 In October last year, I became sick.  Very ill.  Everything I was doing fell by the wayside--including blogging.  I was so sick and nothing helped.  I was hospitalized, in the emergency room over and over and I basically gave up and decided that this was the way it was going to be.  I’m 86 years old, so it was easy to shut down and accept it.

But last week they hospitalized me again, and my brother Bill told me to have them give me a certain medication.  The doctors listened and after months and months of horrible illness, I feel normal---what ever that is for my age.  I’ve had four bearable days in a row...Praise God.  I’m going to try and blog again.  I’ve probably lost half of my readers, but maybe they will find me again.

I wish everyone had a brother like mine.  His brain is like a camera.  He sees something, records it and never forgets it.  The rest of our family are normal.  The reason nobody prescribes the med that he wanted me to take is because a dosage term costs $2660.  Bill called the Navy and explained that they were spending more on me for hospitalizations than the drug cost and they reduced it.  Praise God.  It has made all the difference.  I’m back.  I hope.  I hope...hope.

Today is my birthday.   Eighty-six years young.  It is a wonderful thing to have a long life.  You get to welcome your great-grandchildren into the world.  Halley and Hailey spent Saturday with me.  They are eleven and eight years old.  It was fun !! They are wonderful girls.  I have ten grandchildren and ten or eleven great-grandchildren.  ( I need to count them again.)

The only bad thing is that all of your friends are leaving you behind as they go to meet our God.  I guess that explains the old saying that you are “The last leaf on the tree.”  That’s what I am.  But it gives you time to see a lot of prayers answered.  I always tell God to answer me “Now.”  But sometimes He has other times in mind.  And what a blessing it is to live long enough to see your prayers answered for your loved ones.

My plan is to do nothing else all day.

All of my determination to reform and blog every day have gone by the wayside.  I am really sick.  All I can do at this point is try to get well, and it isn’t working.

Pray for me.  Please.  In five days I will be 86.  I would like to get there in good health...and it is possible.  The medical community can’t figure out what is wrong with me.  Maybe a good prayer would be for them to have wisdom.

Jeanette told me that a little boy said, “My mama always kisses the toilet paper before she throws it away.”  We were talking about funny things children say.  Of course his mama was blotting her lipstick.

Learning a language is always a trial and error kind of thing.  We start a little one off with Mama, or Dada, and add words one at a time.  But sentences are another thing altogether. 

The Bradford pear trees have been blooming in all of their glory for the last two weeks, but today the blooms are losing their white petals and they look like snow piling up along the curbs of the roads and like snow flakes flying through the air.  And then they will be gone...they do their once a year thing--like the daffodils.   

It is time for the redbuds.   They are always in bloom on my birthday.  People start calling me to wish me a Happy Birthday when the first blooms appear. This year they are early. But I’ll take a “Happy Birthday” whenever I get it.

My yard person is coming this afternoon to get the flower beds in order for spring.  He will trim back all the shaggy branches of the shrubs, mulch and top off the Crepe Myrtles.  And I will plant parsley.  That will be the extent of my gardening this year.  Just enough to keep me in Tabouli greens.  If Lowes gets asparagus in, I’ll plant some of that as well.  But it takes three years of growing before you can pick it.  It’s an insurance policy--that I’ll be around in three years!!!