Are you there Holly? It’s me, Mommy.

I’m not a religious person.  I don’t really believe in an afterlife.  However, the Rainbow Bridge story has always been something that I enjoy and that comforts me a little bit…when thinking about it, I just try to put aside what I normally believe.  Sometimes, no matter what you believe, the universe seems to send you signs.  Again, the logical side of me thinks that these are just coincidences, but sometimes I just ignore what is in my head and try to take the comfort that I can from these signs.

The day that Holly was diagnosed with OSA, my husband and I, while sitting in the oncologist’s office, decided that we would take Holly on a special trip at the end of the summer…we wanted to get some quality time with her away from all of the distractions of daily life, we wanted to show her how special and important she was, and we wanted time to make great memories in preparation for what might be coming.  We even briefly considered leaving Clyde at home – he sometimes got on Holly’s nerves, and we really wanted it to be all about her – until he got diagnosed with melanoma and we decided that it would be a trip for both of them (we probably would have taken him either way – we wouldn’t have been able to leave him behind!).  For several reasons, we couldn’t take this trip until August, which was still about 3 and a half months away.  It was tough to imagine that there was a chance that Holly wouldn’t still be here…right then, she seemed so healthy.  Just a little limp.  I was nervous about the surgery, of course, but once we got past that, I was really confident that she was going to crush this disease and, Zeus-style, laugh at the prognosis someday.  She did so well after her amp, and all of the indicators were as positive as they could be – not a super aggressive form of the disease, no visible mets, no lymph node involvement, and an otherwise happy, healthy, vibrant girl who just wanted to get back to the business of living.

She did well with the chemo – no side effects! – making us even more confident that she would stick around for a while.  Even after the heart abnormality was detected and her chemo shortened, we were scared and frustrated, but still relatively optimistic since she wasn’t showing any signs of heart problems and the doctor didn’t think that taking the doxyrubicin out of her chemo plan would have any significant impact on longevity.  Our trip had originally been planned for shortly after her 6 rounds of chemo were completed, but by cutting it to 4 rounds, we would have had a little bit of time for her to rest and recover before we left, so that was positive.

As you know, our baby girl declined suddenly and quickly, and it is difficult to even describe how shocked we were when we lost her.  Just this one time, I won’t go on a rant about how much we got robbed, how unfair her circumstances were, and how incredibly frustrating it was to feel like she was kicking the cancer’s ass, only to have that not really matter in the end.  As many of you have experienced, the diagnosis and treatment (especially recovery from the amp), strengthen the bond that we have with our dogs – even when it is already very strong – and it makes us more aware that we need to enjoy and value every second…in essence, we need to be more dog.  I really thought that we were doing that, and I think that we probably did the best we could given the constraints of daily life.  On the other hand, if I had known that she would be gone so soon, I would have said screw it – we’re going on vacation now!  I would have taken lots of time off from work and spent many more days sitting outside in the sun with her.  I would have managed to get out of the two business trips that I had to go on – of the 7ish weeks that we had after her diagnosis, I was gone for nearly 2 of them, and just thinking about that is enough to bring tears to my eyes.  In fact, when we decided that we would go ahead with the amp whether or not she had mets, our wonderful vets told us we probably didn’t need to spend the money on chest x-rays since it wouldn’t change our plan.  I wanted to know, though – we always wanted as much info. as we could get – and I remember sitting on the floor of the vet’s office saying “If we’re only going to have two more months (the prognosis if lung mets were already detectable), I’m not going on my trip next week…I won’t waste that time away from her.”  How ironic that we got even less time…We always discuss around here how a prognosis isn’t written on the calendar – we usually discuss that in the positive sense, but for us, it unfortunately went the other way.  With a successful amp and chemo we should have had many more months.

A few weeks ago, we went on Holly’s summer vacation…it became in honor of her and also a trip to spoil Clyde.  It was ridiculously hard to pack up and go without her.  My in-laws had offered us their cabin outside of Santa Fe, which is doggie paradise!  The dogs had tons of room to run and play, they got to go on some fun hikes, and they passed out in the shade on the porch when they needed a break.  It was funny – I know Holly so well that sometimes while I watched the others play, I could picture her – I knew exactly what she would be doing in a given circumstance.  One afternoon, after lots of fetch, we were sitting out on the porch, and based on where my husband and I were and where the dogs were, I could tell you with about 99% certainty where Holly would have been lying.  As we all know, all of our dogs would still be here if we could will it to happen.  I closed my eyes and tried so hard to bring her back to me, to have her lying there where she belonged…alas, it didn’t work.

I haven’t dreamt about Holly very much – a little bit here and there, but it’s never been very realistic.  I have wanted to, of course.  I want to be able to escape into an alternate reality in which she is still with me.  The night that we arrived, I was absolutely exhausted after a long drive, and I just completely passed out.  Sometime during the night, I had an incredibly vivid dream – nothing special was happening…just kind of an odd scenario in which someone knocked on the door in the middle of the night,  but Holly was there in that reality, lying right next to me.  It was SO REAL.  As I woke up in the morning, before I was fully conscious, I was trying to figure out if the dream had been real, and I was fairly convinced that it was, so I decided I would ask my husband if it had really happened.  As I came back into the awake world, it finally occurred to me that it couldn’t possibly be real because Holly couldn’t have been here with me.  That realization was pretty horrific, but at the same time, I was happy to have finally had a dream in which it felt like she was really there.  I almost never have dreams that are so vivid and realistic dreams that I wake up wondering if they were real or not.  Maybe it was just because I had been thinking about her so much that day, but I think about her a lot every day…somewhere, something in me really wondered if she had come to see me.

I don’t know the last time I saw a rainbow…until this trip.  We saw tons of them.  It was downright bizarre.  The day after we got there, we drove into Santa Fe, and while in the car, we spotted a complete rainbow – not a portion of one, but one that really looked like you could tell where it began and ended…it looked like a bridge.  Of course, that brought tears.  Then, a few minutes later, we realized that another rainbow had formed above it – it was a double rainbow!  That was the best of what we saw, but we continued to see them throughout the week, right down to as we were driving away.  I thought that we would be done with them once we got out of the general area, but we ended up seeing one in Arizona, not far before the California border.  It really was incredible to see all of these rainbows on Holly’s trip.  The normal me thinks this just happened to be the weather where we were…a normal scientific phenomenon….but the grieving me wants so badly to believe that it was something more.  Then I wonder if it really matters either way.  I try so hard to feel Holly’s presence, but I rarely do…it is difficult for me; but having that dream and seeing all of these rainbows while I was in a mindset that was so focused on her, and during a time when I was really actively grieving made me feel something, some hope that she wasn’t completely gone.  So, no matter what I believe, if I can have those moments of wonder that bring me some comfort, I will continue to look for them.

Beanie Baby, if you’re out there somewhere – There aren’t words for how much I miss you.  Not having you here is still nearly unbearable.  I wish that we had been able to take you on your trip…you would have LOVED it!  I know that you knew how loved you were, but I wish that you knew it even more.  I wish that we could have done more to show you how incredibly special you are to us.  I wish that things hadn’t happened so suddenly…I wanted to have a “perfect day” with you before you went.  You should have gotten more flying Dutchmen, more frosty paws, more park trips, more couch snuggles, more everything.  I love you more than I can say.  xo, Mommy