"What are you doing out?" I asked her as she walked across our back yard, mistaking her for Johnny. Surprised by my greeting (and wary of people in general), she ran off.

We left food outside for her through the fall and into the winter. When it got below zero, I worried about her. I followed her tracks in the snow to discover that she had made a den in the woodpile of the summer cabin next door, but she apparently had no home or people to care about her. One snowy night, I coaxed her close enough to be grabbed and brought her inside.

Miss Molly was most likely mistreated before she ended up at our house--her upper and lower left canine teeth had been broken off. She was also cautious around people--even after a decade of gentle care. but she was so soft and round that I loved holding and petting her. We never had any idea how old she was--I thought she was mature (maybe four? six?) when she came to live with us, yet she looked the same a decade or more later as she did then, just plumper.

Time didn't seem to touch her, but in her final years she became more affectionate, as if at last the fears of the before-time were forgotten and she felt secure and cherished. She was. I like to think of it as our long good-bye. She had a full life but one that had to come to an inevitable close. Her final decline was quick, leaving us only with the regret that her long life couldn't have been longer.

Letting go of Mally was hard.