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A Letter For Her Fans
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Orange County, CA
Member Since:
28 November 2008
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20 November 2012 - 9:16 pm
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First, let me say that I hope no one finds this post inappropriate.  Some of you may be familiar with the singer Fiona Apple.  She has a 14 year old dog that she rescued as a puppy.  Her dog, Janet, has cancer and is nearing the end of her illness.  Apple has cancelled her entire South American tour to be home with her.  I'm not always good with words when it comes to expressing myself when we lose a Tripawd.  But I thought Apple's open letter to her fans pretty much sums up what each of us feel as we near the end of our loved ones' journeys, and what we learn from them in along the way.  

 

It’s 6pm on Friday,and I’m writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet.I am writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.Here’s the thing.I have a dog Janet, and she’s been ill for almost two years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She’s almost 14 years old now.I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then ,an adult officially – and she was my child.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She’s almost 14 and I’ve never seen her start a fight ,or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She’s a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact.

We’ve lived in numerous houses, and jumped a few make shift families, but it’s always really been the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she’s used to me being gone for a few weeks every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison’s Disease, which makes it dangerous for her to travel since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and to excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all of this, she’s effortlessly joyful and playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago.

She’s my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she’s the one who taught me what love is.

I can’t come to South America. Not now.

When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.

She doesn’t even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she’s not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That’s why they are so much more present than people.

But I know that she is coming close to point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything. She’ll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can’t leave her now, please understand.

If I go away again, I’m afraid she’ll die and I won’t have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us.

I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship.

I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend.

And helps her be comfortable, and comforted, and safe, and important.

Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life, that keeps us feeling terrified and alone.

I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time.

I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.

I need to do my damnedest to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I’ve ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and reveling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel.

And I am asking for your blessing.I’ll be seeing you.

Love, Fiona

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My heart lives at Rainbow Bridge
Member Since:
28 November 2008
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20 November 2012 - 10:08 pm
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Simply lovely. Tears gently falling.

Shanna & Spirit Trouble ~ Trouble gained her wings 3/16/2011, a 27 1/2 month cancer survivor, tail wagging. RIP sweetheart, you are my heart and soul.  Run free at Rainbow Bridge.
The November Five - Spirits Max, Cherry, Tika, Trouble & Nova. 11/2008 - 3/2013 An era ends as Queen Nova crossed the Bridge.

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Oakland, CA
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30 April 2012
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20 November 2012 - 11:01 pm
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This is so beautiful, and you're right, I think that you're right that it really sums up the way we all feel.  Lots of tears!

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Lucas, Ohio
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17 September 2010
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21 November 2012 - 4:14 am
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Thank you so much for posting this...it it is heartachingly beautiful. For me, this is a keeper.

Anita

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Columbia, MO
Member Since:
10 December 2011
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21 November 2012 - 4:52 am
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I had read this last night on a news site.  I was so moved by it.  Daisy was laying here I'm sure thinking "the idiot woman is crying at her computer AGAIN"!

Marla and Daisy

My Two Tripawds...Biscuit and Spirit Daisy

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Edmond, Oklahoma
Member Since:
7 January 2011
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21 November 2012 - 5:33 am
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wow, that was beautifully said; thanks for posting

Scout: January 31, 2002 to November 7, 2011

Scout's diagnosis was "poorly differentiated sarcoma"; amputation 1/11/2011.  Scout enjoyed 9 fantastic years on 4 legs and 9 glorious months on 3 legs.  If love alone could have saved you…

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On The Road


Member Since:
24 September 2009
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21 November 2012 - 8:58 am
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Whew. That was heavy, and beautiful, and sad and uplifting all at the same time, a lot like her music.  Thanks for sharing it.

Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet

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Sydney, Australia
Member Since:
13 September 2011
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21 November 2012 - 7:14 pm
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Thank you!  I had just finished looking at this on our news website when I then see it again in Tripawds!

It is beautiful.

Magnum: 30th May 2002 to 5th May 2012. Lost her back left leg to osteosarcoma on 5th Sep 2011. Lung mets found on 20th Mar 2012 but it was bone mets in the hip that ended her brave battle. Magnum's motto - "Dream as if you'll live for ever, live as if you'll die today" (James Dean). Loyal, loving, courageous and spirited to the end. My beloved heart dog, see her memoirs from Rainbow Bridge ...... http://princess.....pawds.com/

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Plainfield, Illinois
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14 May 2011
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22 November 2012 - 8:10 am
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Wow. So well said.

Diagnosed with OSA: 5/2/2011 Ampuversary: 5/11/2011 OSA returned in hip: 8/26/2011
Chili Dawg crossed the Rainbow Bridge on 8/30/2011 & is now pain free. He was my heart dog, and I miss him every day.

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St. Louis, MO
Member Since:
16 September 2011
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23 November 2012 - 9:58 am
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Beautiful!  I posted it on my FB page yesterday.

Hugs and chocolate Labby kisses,

Ellen & Charley

Charley's Blog:  CHOCOLATE KISSES


DOB: 3-29-08, male chocolate lab  
Dx: OSA L proximal humerus 10-19-10

Amputation: L front leg & scapula 10-28-10

Chemo: 5 rounds of Carboplatin

Video (12 weeks post amp):Tripaw Charley Playing

♥♥♥ Lots of supplements and love!!! ♥♥♥

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