Molly.

This isn't going to be an easy post to write.  I am going to cry.  A lot.  I may or may not hit "publish" on this.  I probably will.  I have got to write about this while it is fresh in my mind. I know I will never forget Molly. But I want to remember every little thing about her. 

This is Molly...

...she is my age, 34. She is married to the love of her life, Scott, and has two precious babies, Sydney, 4.5 and Henry, 2.5. 

Molly is the most wonderful person you could ever know.  She is thoughtful, caring, generous and a HAPPY person.  One of Molly's friends gave a speech at her funeral and said, "if everyone in the world had a friend like Molly, the world would be an amazing place." That stuck with me.  What a compliment to give.  That spoke volumes about the kind of person Molly is.  Was.  Whatever.  It is hard for me to use the past tense.

Some history....okay, a lot of history.  I couldn't make this post short. Not sorry.

me, sassy as ever, chris, patirck, and sweet as pie molly. The 4 cousins.

 Molly grew up in Michigan, so we didn't see them as much as we would have liked, but when we did see each other, we picked up right where we left off.  This was true as adults too.  We would see each other at a wedding or a party and it would be like we never lost any time between us.

When we were little, we took vacations together...

 ...we washed bikes together...

Truth be told, I don't really remember the above pictures.  I remember riding on that plane with Molly-- we were laughing about something... I don't know what.

I do remember when we went to California together with my parents.  My brother was away at camp and Molly got to come with us on the trip.  We stayed at the Ritz Carlton and they messed up our rooms somehow.  Molly and I got upgraded to this amazing room with a beautiful terrace.  We couldn't stop laughing at how amazing it was.  I will never forget walking in to the room and both of us spotting the robes at the same time (the ones that came in the closet...to us, that was a big deal!), and we both put them on immediately.... and I think we kept them on the rest of the trip! haha There was a phone in the bathroom and Molly yelled for me to come in there and I found her sitting on the toilet, robe on, holding the phone up to her ear.  We laughed and laughed.  My parents were in the process of building a new house in Chapel Hill.... they put a phone in my bathroom at home because Molly and I got such a kick out of the phone in the bathroom there.

We went to Disneyland on that trip.  We rode this boat ride and decided to tell people we were twins if they asked-- not that they did-- but we thought we should be ready just in case.  

The hotel was super fru-fru and one day by the pool we noticed the dad from 90210 lounging.  At the time, that show was AMAZING (it still is today, let's be honest) and we had to go say hi to him.  He was super friendly.  Molly and I had our arms linked the entire time we talked to him.  The lobby of the hotel had the most luxurious, amazing couches.  We noticed one day that if we sat on the couch and then stood up, there were 'couch fluffers' who came running out to re-fluff the pillows! We were in awe of this.  I remember we were supposed to meet my parents in the lobby and they found us down there, in robes, obviously, sitting on couches and then jumping up and watching the fluffers jump into action.  What a stupid memory to hang on to.... but I cherish it, especially now.

I also cherish the memory I have of visiting Molly up in Michigan where we showed up wearing the exact same thing, head to toe-- completely unplanned.  The only thing different was her hair was up and mine was down.... we fixed that quickly so that we could fully match.  We sat on the front steps of my Uncle Jim's house and talked about nothing.

We both grew up and got married.  I went to her wedding, she went to mine.  She sat in the front row.  I remember thinking as I saw her there, "I wish I would have asked her to be a bridesmaid..."

Molly's wedding:

My wedding:

My mom planned an amazing birthday party for my grandpa at the beach years ago-- before we had kids.  Molly and Scott came down and we had THE best time together.

None of us had kids yet.  Elizabeth was pregnant with Jackson.  The 4 of us below were in charge of dinner one night and we did a Mexican theme.  Molly found some amazing margarita that required a million limes.  I swear we were all sore the next day from squeezing so many limes!

We were happy girls together...it was like we never left off....

Doesn't she have the most amazing smile? She could brighten anyone's day...

The whole crew down there-- Molly and I were next to each other on the left. 

The next time we saw Molly was for my grandmother's 80th birthday party in Chapel Hill:

 We were all pregnant.  I was due with Cal the next month and Elizabeth and Molly were both due in March.  I was huge. They were not .

We got together the following year for Molly's brother's wedding out in Tahoe.  I did a whole post about that trip here. 

Molly and I were even closer then... I think we bonded over motherhood.  I remember her sweet Sydney being nice and calm and Cal was discovering his wild side- hahaha.  We had a great time together that trip (are you noticing a theme? We have a good time every time we are together!)

This is Molly and her big brother Patrick...

Molly and Scott taking the trolly up to the top of the mountain for the wedding...

I took these pictures of Molly during the ceremony-- doesn't she just look stunning? 

One of my most favorite pictures of her...

Molly loooooves being a mom-- it made her happy...

Molly, me and my mom danced like no body's business that night... we had THE best time dancing the night away...

This picture makes me smile, laugh, cry and everything in between-- pure joy acting a fool together! I wish I had found it sooner and sent it to Molly; she would have liked it too.

We each had more babies; I had Andy and Molly had Henry....

And Molly's sweet family was complete.  She was such a good mom.  She really and truly loved being a mom.  Her next door neighbor spoke at the funeral about how she mothered by loving and redirecting...and if her kids were having a meltdown, she would pick them up and hug them to calm them-- a wonderful approach to motherhood.  I could learn a thing or ten from her. 

She adored these kids....and they adored her...how could they not?

This summer, Molly caught a bad cold that she just couldn't shake. 

She woke up one day and said she felt like she had a screwdriver in her chest turning around and around.  The doctor had some red flags with this so they ordered chest x-rays.  They found her chest to be filled with liquid.   After further tests were done, she was diagnosed with cancer on October 25th. 

The cancer was pretty spread out in her body, but mid-November it was determined it was pancreatic cancer.  While this was not the news we had hoped for, the doctors were very hopeful that since she was young (34) and super healthy otherwise, she would fight hard and live long. 



Doctors told her there would be lots of chemo and they encouraged her to get some family pictures done before she lost her hair.  These were the pictures that ended up being displayed at her funeral. They were absolutely perfect pictures.  Here is one below, from her obituary. 

My mom and I were down in Miami for our girls' weekend when we got the text that it was pancreatic cancer.  I got it via email, actually, from Molly.  I got her current phone number and we started texting.  And we texted a lot from that point on.  It was like this cancer reignited our friendship and we began texting multiple times a week.  Mainly it was just me checking in her on... sometimes it was me trying to make her smile (thefatjewish on instagram provided many laughs for Molly), other times it was just letting her know that I was praying like crazy for her.

In every text she ever sent me, she was positive:
(I am re-typing these because I don't ever want to lose them or forget them...)

 "They give me a shot after chemo to generate white blood cells and it makes my bones ache but it doesn't last too long....hopefully better tomorrow!"

After me doing a 'checking in there' text: "Hi lovie...been kind of a rough week but I am hanging in there! ;)"

"We're heading in the right direction- tumors shrinking, stable or disappeared!"

On New Year's Eve: "Thanks so much for all of your love and support! Hope you have something fun planned tonight. Happy, healthy new year! xoxo"

After I sent her a funny picture of Andy: "Oh. Mee. Gee. Too much for words!!! I'm in the hospital- got my lungs glued today. Hoping it worked and I can breathe again."

I replied that I didn't understand what it means to have your lungs glued together and I asked if it was painful... she replied:
"Very painful...on some nice morphine ;) I'll be here until Thursdayish....bachelor may be the ticket if I can stay up!!"

And this text....

 So Molly was fighting this cancer and doing her chemo like they planned, but her lungs just couldn't stay healthy enough for her to continue chemo.  When she went into the hospital to have her lungs glued together, she got sick.  Like pneumonia sick.  She was supposed to stay in the hospital for a few days and ended up staying there for 2 weeks.  They found a clot in her heart.  The clot miraculously disappeared.  Everyone had hope! They sent her home to rest up to get ready for another round of chemo and she got sick.  RSV sick.  She was sent back to the hospital. 

Unfortunately, this time, she wouldn't be leaving. 

We texted each other multiple times on Saturday the 31st.  She was as sweet as ever.  She found out some news and sent me a text saying "my heart is completely with you- as if it wasn't before." On Super Bowl Sunday, I sent her a picture of a bracelet a friend made me with some prayer beads for Molly. She replied at 4:11 "I love that Carrie!!!!"

Little did I know that 24 hours later she would be gone. 

She was in a lot of pain on that Sunday.  I had no idea. 

Monday morning, my mom got a text from Uncle Pat (Molly's dad) saying that Molly really wasn't doing well and that today would probably be the day that she died. 

Mom and dad called me as I was pulling out of school drop off, on my way to teach popup.  I bawled.  How could this be? She was just texting me yesterday-- if she was going to die, don't you think she would have said something? (of course she wouldn't....but this is my self-centered thoughts). 

I taught my class and then sobbed when it was over.  There was NO WAY Molly was dying today.  No way.  I texted Molly after class... just a simple "I love you and I am so proud of you, Moll..." and I never got a reply.  And that's when it sunk in.  She always replied. She would be in the middle of chemo and reply to my texts.  I cried a bunch on Monday during the day, but I was in denial.  I kept thinking she would shoot me a text saying "phew! That was a close one....!" but, she didn't.  I sent her one more text at 12:45 saying "I love you." And I never heard back.

At 4:00 on Monday, while we were at swim, my mom called with the news that Molly had passed.  She had a breathing tube in and when they took it out, her lungs just couldn't keep up.  It was her time to leave us. 

I am not sure I have ever felt a sadness like this before. Molly was an AMAZING person.  She was a great mom, a loving, caring wife, and an extraordinary friend.  She was always thinking of others.  Always.  She was always doing kind little things for others-- random notes in the mail, random cookie drop offs at friend's houses, random acts of kindness that never went unnoticed.

Molly was the epitome of making the most of each day and living life to the fullest...with a smile! She was funny and elegant and SO creative! She was kind and caring and genuine.  So genuine.  She was the kind of person you would want to be friends with.

I was sad to lose a cousin- heartbroken, really. But I was beyond sad to think about her babies.  Every time I would think about them I would cry-- I still do.  Sydney will turn 5 without her mom there.  She will start kindergarten without her mom taking pictures of her.  Henry will potty train without his mom cheering him on.  He will miss a hug from his mom every night. They will have a million life events without Molly there and it makes me ache to think about it.  Sydney will hopefully remember her mom... will Henry?  Life just seems so unfair.  What did these little kids do to deserve losing their mom? Their rock. Their biggest fan. Their greatest love.  It just isn't fair. 

I think of Andy crying out in the night for me.  He doesn't want anyone but me.  Who would be there for Henry? Scott would... but sometimes a mom is all that will do.  A kid needs his/her mom and I am so so sad these two no longer have theirs. 

This quote popped up in my instagram newsfeed on Monday and it seemed so fitting for Molly:

I am holding my babies even closer.  Life is precious.



Molly Murphy Patton: obituary