Above: Zach with Molly and Tonya, the day we got Molly

Below: Eli meeting Molly for the first time (The boys look SO young!!)

It took a while, but he finally caved.

We often call our house the Apted Zoo. Dad the Zookeeper had long refused to add aquatic creatures to our menagerie of pets. But for years now, the kids have begged for a fish named Tonya to honor our sweet dog that died in 2007. I’d promised them that someday, it would happen.

He’s a stubborn one, that zookeeper. It took nearly three years and the failing health of another dog to convince him to let the Easter Bunny leave a couple of female betta fish for the boys. You never saw two happier kids than mine this past Easter. Zach promptly named his fish Tonya, and Eli named his Mary, after Jesus’ mother.

Until Mary and Tonya 2 came on the scene, we were strictly a dog and cat family. At one time we had three dogs and two cats. Then Tonya passed away, and unfortunately, last week our sweet chocolate Lab, Molly died too.

You might remember my column from four years ago, when the unsinkable Molly Brown came to us. She was a rescue dog, and we never could understand why someone had abandoned her. She was almost no trouble at all; obedient and sweet as Labrador Retrievers are.

She was sunny and bumbling, klutzy and beautiful. Someone had trained her well. She would not take a bite of her food until you told her it was OK. She had the loudest, scariest bark. It boomed so loudly the windows seemed to vibrate in its wake. Of course, nothing else about her was scary. But that bark was fearsome.

When Tonya died, Molly looked for her, for days, and lay in Tonya’s special spot. It was enough to break your heart.

After Molly came, we rescued another pup named Annie. She’s a part-Lab mutt, and she and Molly were instant BFFs. They looked so much alike. But Molly was 75 pounds and brown, Annie half Molly’s weight, and black. Molly seemed to enjoy mothering little Annie. Now Annie is our only dog, and she misses her mentor.

Molly was just a really good dog; a faithful, pleasant soul in the background of life. She loved pleasing us, burying and digging up her favorite bone, loping around the yard with the boys. About the craziest thing she ever did was break out of the fence one day and chase after the geese in a nearby lake.

I hope God had a big lake full of geese and ducks waiting for Molly when she got to heaven.

Molly had always been healthy, but suddenly, everything hit her at once. She became severely diabetic, had a tumor appear on her leg, and began to suffer from hip dysplasia. There was no way we could afford all the expensive treatments she needed to maintain her quality of life, and since we didn’t know exactly how old she was, chances are good that no matter how much we spent, she’d soon succumb to something age-related. No rescue groups were able to take her. So the only humane option was euthanasia.

Donnie took Molly to the vet one last time and my valiant, kind-hearted sons insisted on going with him. Zach had held Tonya as she breathed her last, and I was amazed and proud that he was brave enough to face such sadness again. I’ve only experienced euthanasia once, and found it devastating. I am such a coward compared to my sons.

Zach and Molly had a special connection, and I think that was it—that faithful spirit willing to stay with you always, til the end.

There were lots of tears that night as we mourned our loss. When it was time to feed the fish, Eli had a request.

“Mom, I want to call my fish Molly now.”

Of course, I knew that Molly’s time was short when I got the fish, but I wasn’t going to suggest Eli name her that when our dog was still with us. But when he chose the name Mary on Easter morning, I smiled inside.

“Did you know that Molly is actually an old-fashioned nickname for Mary?”

He grinned. “No, I didn’t. That’s cool, Mom.”

Tonya and Molly together again, in the fishbowl, and in heaven.