Tennis balls in Heaven.  Are there tennis balls in Heaven?  For a few days now I have been asking myself that question.  It was a month ago tonight that I had to put my Chocolate Lab to sleep.  Murphy Brown was her name.  I gave her that name because she had a lot of spunk as a puppy.  She never lost it.

             Being an English Labrador Retriever, Murphy had a large bone structure; her paws were huge.  When she was a puppy, the vet predicted she would grow to 90 pounds and she did.  Her eyes were a golden light brown; she had a single black freckle on her puppy nose, and as years past, that freckle got more and more freckle friends.  I chocked it up to her love for the sun.  I called Murphy my little chocolate sun goddess.  Even on the coldest of New England days, if the sun was out, she had to get some rays.  I was afraid her luscious chocolate color would fade but it never did.

            So, are there tennis balls in Heaven?  Murphy had an uncanny knack of shoving two tennis balls in her mouth, and when there was a third ball rolling around, she would try to pick that up too.  If she had one or two balls in her mouth, she would egg you on to pull one out.  She loved to play with anyone who would give her attention or dog treats.  Never in her eleven years did she ever bite anyone.  When she was a year old, she alerted us that our garage was on fire.  Five more minutes, the house would have been fully engulfed.  Murph saved our lives.  We realized she was pretty special.

            I prepared myself for the day that I might have to put Murphy down.  I swore to myself if Murphy got sick or severely hurt, I would not allow her suffer.  What was thought to be a sensitive stomach, turned out to be a malignant tumor on her spleen that started to bleed.  The vet said if she had surgery, she would probably only survive a month or two at best.  She was bleeding internally and I had to make the heart-wrenching decision to put her down.  She was so weak that she was unable to stand.  I could see it in her golden eyes that she trusted me.  I was going to end her suffering.  I watched, rather calmly, as the vet sedated Murphy.  She injected the blue liquid; within ten seconds, Murphy was gone.  My big, brown love was gone.  My tears flowed a few times but I knew Murphy was in a better place.  Every Tuesday around 6:50 PM I pause and think what Murphy might be doing in Heaven; I grab her collar, signifying that I will never forget her.  There must be tennis balls in Heaven because I can feel her happy, golden eyes watching over me.