She is my best friend




On Friday, in a heartbreaking, handwritten letter addressed to "a few thousand friends I have not met yet," Fiona Apple announced that she is postponing the South American leg of her tour due to the ill-health of her beloved pit bull, Janet — a 13-year-old rescue dog suffering from Addison's disease and, more worryingly, a tumor on her chest.

It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm 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 about 2 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 kid.

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 joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just 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 more dangerous for her to travel, since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is 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 she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to 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 just to decide what 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 & friendship.

I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable & comforted & safe & 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 & 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 I am revelling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing.

I'll be seeing you.

Love,

Fiona

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She's quite the lady

So beautiful and yet so sad.

Janet is one lucky dog to have a mom who loves her so much.

Thank you for posting this. So beautiful.

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Wendy

Now the proud Mom of Renny, gotcha-day 10/19/2012.



My beautiful Lacey, always loved, never forgotten.
- Gotcha Day April 28, 2008 at @3 years old
- Crossed over the Rainbow Bridge, at the age of @8 years old, on Sunday, August 5, 2012

A friend forwarded this to me last night, I cried. An eloquent testament to doing what you believe is right down to the core of your being.

Janet is an incredibly lucky girl.

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Part 1 of Hannah's story - Cancer diagnosis - - - - Part 2 of Hannah's story - grab bag of health issues

I only know of a few of her songs and not the biggest fan, but... Respect.

Way to go staying with your dog.

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I read this last night and thought it was so beautiful.

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I applaude her decision and dedication to her pup.

This is the letter to her fans:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater


and an article about it:
Fiona Apple postpones her tour to stay by her dying dog's side | Life With Dogs

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Lida
http://www.candlelightdreams.com/paw-tales/
http://lidaverner.smugmug.com/

I never heard of her before reading this on cnn, i think it is wonderful she is doing this.

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WHEN SOMEONE YOU LOVE BECOMES A MEMORY,THE MEMORIES BECOME TREASURES,OF THE HEART.

It is really a beautiful expression of the relationship between human and companion.

God Bless Fiona Apple and her dog. I applaud her and understand her decision completely.

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Meet Yogi! http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/...tion-yogi.html