We lost Cider our beloved dog in the wee hours of the morning of December 23, 2019. Except for what we thought was a pulled muscle on her right hind leg that sent her into shaking spasms and rapid panting the Thursday evening before this horrible Monday, Cider was her effervescence and vivacious self. She greeted my daughter with enthusiastic kisses and cuddles when she returned Saturday evening from a short trip to New York City to see the wonderous Christmas decorations and festivities this time of year. 

Cider and I had gone for a run, and she waited patiently as I stopped to get some dinner from a local Lebanese food store, greeting every person who entered or left with equal adoration and excitement, but always with an eye out for me who took a little longer due to spying some last minute Christmas gifts. She was limping again when we left the store. I attributed to the pulled muscle and cooling down. I was limping too from a heel problem, so we meandered slowly the 2 blocks home. We should have taken notice when our daughter pointed out red marks streaking up her belly. Instead, we attributed it to the ice we had applied Thursday night when she was limping so bad and shaking thinking we over iced. I gave her more anti-inflammatory medicine just as we had treated her two months back when she over did it and seemed extremely sore and tender for a little too long. I had taken her to the vet then and she got a checkup. She had a second check up on December 15 when we took Sasha in for her senior exam. Sasha was two years older than Cider and we took her in on the 17 to have her teeth cleaned. She came home with 7 teeth pulled and stitches all over her body from warts they removed while she was under, including two on her eyes. She looked like a hot mess.

Around about 3:30 a.m., I woke up to Cider sitting by my head looking miserable and panting. I had not slept well at all, and Cider has done this to me before in the middle of the night. A trip to the vet to have her anal glans expressed always seemed to fix these bouts. But this night, something felt different. I sat up and took her in my arms. She was panting rapidly, and I could feel her heart racing. I turned on the light and felt icy cold all over—like all the heat in my body had just been sucked out. I knew then in my bones she was going to die. But I didn’t want to know that yet in my mind or brain. I woke up my husband. He saw her breathing fast and felt her heart. He looked up all night vets. None were in Arlington. The closest was Vienna—45 minutes or so had passed by now as we weighted our options—make a run for ones of these all-night Animal Hospitals or wait until 7 for our vet to open. My husband sent the closer animal hospital an e-mail, but it was not clear if they got it. Then, he called. They said to bring her in. Now, more than an hour had passed. And, now whatever was holding me back and seeing if we could wait for our vet to open crumbled and I said: “Let’s go.” We started getting dressed. I laid down by Cider. We were nose to nose as my husband scrambled to get his wallet and things. She could barely lift her head, but she followed him with her eyes as he moved about us. I went to get my jacket. When I returned, she was breathing even faster as if she had just run 10 miles all out. I scooped her up into my arms and told my husband to hurry. I woke up our daughter and told her we were taking Cider to the vet. She asked what was wrong. I told her I did not know. Now, my stomach was dropping as I made sure not to trip on the steps going out to the car. I couldn’t understand what was taking my husband so long as I cried, “Hurry we’ve got to go now.” 

We drove. Cider continued breathing fast, but she was breathing, and we were driving. There was no traffic on 66. It was dark, and we could go fast. We got off at Nutley. Then, we had to stop for lights. I felt scared. Cider’s breathing seemed different, but I could not tell for sure due to the sounds of the driving. We had to stop for red lights. Have you ever had to stop at a red light when you knew someone you loved dearly was dying? I have. They took forever.

We got to 123. Where do we go now? Neither of us had bothered to MapQuest the hospital. We had no idea which way to turn. But just on the other side of the road to the left was an Animal Hospital. So, what would you do?

We drove into the parking lot, but hospital was dark, it looked closed. We hoped desperately to glimpse a light on, and so my husband got out hoping to glimpse a light on somewhere. Cider’s breathing definitely had changed. My husband was looking for any sign of a human at the Animal Hospital—or anyone really. But, it wasn’t opened. Cider was looking at him, and I was pleading with him to get help now. Then, Cider stiffened in my arms. Her paw hit the half-way rolled down windshield. I cried desperately telling my husband we were losing her. He got back in the car. But, we were lost. I could feel Cider was not breathing any more. I knew her heart had stopped. I told my husband to drive. We had no idea which way to go. We went to a gas station to ask directions. But, it was closed. We circled back to a 7/11. My husband ran inside to ask some men where the all-night Animal Hospital was. It was the other way. We had to make a U-turn because it was a divided highway. The next light was red. I could feel Cider peeing on me. I cried telling her not to leave us. I wondered if I could figure out how to do dog CPR or if I should breath into her mouth. But, I just squeezed harder saying her name over and over. Finally, we found the all-night vet. I knew she was dead, but my husband took her from me and rushed to the front door. Her head flopped lifelessly as he ran. I felt cold again, deeply cold.

Inside, there was no one at the front desk. We pleaded and shouted for help. Someone came from a side office. Then a doctor appeared. They asked if we wanted to do dog CPR. Of course. But I knew she wasn’t coming back. They tried for 15 minutes breathing for her and doing compressions. They doctor came out once to tell us her white blood cell count was super low. She suspected internal bleeding. Then, she came out again and told us her red blood cell count was 15, it should be over 70. She asked us if we wanted them to continue CPR. She affirmed Cider had not begun breathing on her own since they started nor did her heartbeat restart. We said no.

So, there you go. That was our day before Christmas. It utterly devastated us.

I have not been able to bear posting or being on Facebook or anywhere in public ever since. I cringe at the thought of all the obligatory wishes of sadness and condolences… even though that is the right thing to do. I’ve done it too. I’ve used the crying face, or I’ve typed something that maybe sounded sympathetic or encouraging. But I just haven’t been able to bear the thought of posting my sad story and then measuring it against all my other posts—sad or otherwise—because that’s what you do in this online world of clicks and likes and “engagements”. What the hell is engagements?! That’s what Facebook calls it though, we type comments to each other—that’s ag engagement. And, oh how Facebooks algorithms love engagements. The more you type back and forth to each other (even if it’s just two people bantering back and forth), the more Facebook shows this post to “other” people who might be interested. And, if more people join in on making comments, then more people get shown the post, and so on and so forth. I have told very few people within my circle of friends what has happened. The people I have told since this happened; I can count on one hand. Mostly, it’s because I was asked how I am doing—the young man at the front desk of my gym, my dentist, the dental hygienist. I told Alena and my brothers and mother. Alena had offered me the amazing gift of a Winter Solstice reading. She was practicing the ways of her ancestors and relatives after traveling back to Slovenia recently. How could I say no. Little did she or I know she was giving messages I would need to survive the next week. And so naturally, I reached out to her for support in the hours and days after. I know I have many good, wonderful friends. So, please know I mean no disrespect in not reaching out to so many dear friends I know would not hesitate to help me. I simply have not been able to reach out, the waves of pain have been too great to bear. It’s simply easier not to speak or say anything. It’s been the only way to hold myself together.

But I have been thinking why should losing a pet cause such sadness, such overwhelming pain, such immobility? Everyone knows pets don’t live as long as humans. And I know, lord do I know that I should think of all the good memories. Heck, she was 11 years and 1 month. That is old for a dog who had a wonderful life!

And, I will remember all these wonderful times. And, I will cherish each one like the most precious gold. Cider absolutely made my and my family’s life richer, fuller, and brighter in every way. She added sparkle, light, and joy—weaving it effortlessly in her quirky habits, howls, and ways. She was the music in the house. She followed me everywhere. She was my best friend, confident, fluffy consoler. She infused our house and each member of our little family with love, undivided attention, and so much fun. She never ran out of her ability to give and she made sure every member of the family and every guest who ever walked through the door got a good dose of joy. She could get a bit obsessed with her balls. We have quite a collection of tennis balls now after a little over 11 years of her finding a new ball practically every walk and bringing it home—brand new really yellow balls, very dirty balls, chopped up balls, deflated balls, balls rotting under 3 feet of leaves… it didn’t matter to Cider. She would find it and bring it home. And every time you left the house, you knew that you had a welcoming committee of one excited Cider dog who would wait in the window until we returned from any errand or trip.

But, right now, I want to mark the heavy occasions because I think she meant something much more than a little fury fluff ball. She helped me navigate a challenging time in my life… and she helped each member of my family navigate these years because they have not been easy.

2009: Starting off in 2009, she was not even one year old. I woke in the middle of the night (almost the same time she woke me just last week). I had severe stomach pains. I could not stop throwing up. My husband looked up symptoms. And we did the same thing that we did for Cider, wondering if we should get up and go to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning? Did I simply have food poisoning or the flu? I don’t know what made us decide to go back then… maybe because I couldn’t stop throwing up. We threw on clothes and took our daughter with us at 3 or 4 in the morning. She was only 9 years old. They gave me an anti-nausea shot. I was worried because I had heard recently of someone losing their arm from one. I stopped throwing up. Lots of people started coming into see me. No one knew what was wrong, so they ordered an MRI, which meant drinking a huge (and I mean huge) pitcher of contrast. I couldn’t drink it all. I felt like I would explode. I got wheeled into the MRI. My husband and daughter had gone home… it had already been an hour, probably 2… still they couldn’t figure it out. I got wheeled back to my spot at the ER. I don’t know how long it was… but not too much longer after the MRI, the surgeon who had come into see me was back. He was shifting from foot to foot as he said: “We’re taking you into surgery now. You have a twisted intestine. They will put a tube down your throat to get the water out. You might still be awake, so I don’t want you to panic.” I was like… can I call my husband, what about my wedding ring. He said: “Oh, I’ll take your rings. I’ll put them here. Don’t let me forget them. Yes, call your husband. They’re going to be here for you in minutes. Get her a phone.”

The surgery I think was 4 hours long. I think my stomach was close to the point of bursting that’s why my surgeon had to move fast… and fast he did. He was magnificent. I know I owe him my life for had the intestine or stomach burst, I would have died. I had been born with a genetic defect. The right side of my large intestines had never been attached to my abdominal wall as it should have. They reattached it during that surgery after they untwisted it and made sure parts of my intestine had not died from lack of blood. I was really lucky. They didn’t have to take any of it out. I never knew before being put under that I might have woken up to no lower intestine. Had it died. They would have had to remove it. I am so thankful this was not the case. But, after the surgery, I had to stay in the hospital until my intestine woke up again. It took somewhere between 7 and 10 days. During this time, I could not eat or drink a thing and I had to get out of bed everyday beginning the day after surgery and start walking. Have you ever tried to sit up in bed and put your legs over the side to stand after all the muscle in your stomach have been cut, parted, and stitched back together again? I have. It is hell. I didn’t think I would make it, but I had one really good nurse who was kind but firm. I had my husband and my daughter who came every day. And, I had a few good friends came too. I had a lot of time to think, especially since “the interns” arrived in my room every morning between 5 and 6 a.m. I was quite an unusual case. They were studying me. But they were nice, so I didn’t mind. During this time, I came to understand there were two things I must do before death comes for me again. #1 – Raise my daughter to adulthood and make sure she is strong and independent and loved. #2 – Write the book I have always wanted to write my whole life, but just never got around to doing it… giving myself so many good reasons like: “I can’t write dialogue.” “I don’t know what to write.” But I made a commitment then that I would write it… whatever the hell it was.

When I returned home 10 days later, little Cider was so happy to see me. She squealed and cried… yes, she cried, as if I had returned to her from the dead. She licked my face for more than half an hour, thereafter she rarely left me side… really ever since. So, that was our first disaster she helped all of us navigate because my daughter really needed her those 10 days that I was gone, and so did my husband. We all needed her. Our other dog Sasha was lovely too, of course, but Cider did not hold back, and you could hold her forever and she would rarely try to wiggle away like Sasha does.

There were many ups and down between 2009 and our next big crisis in 2015, but those don’t really matter to this story. We all have ups and downs. I supposed our fate was gathering in those years, we just didn’t know it yet. And, I kept my two promises to raise my daughter and to write a story though it took until 2012 to finally figure and find my story!

I just remembered something else that happened that year. My daughter had turned 9 that year. All that year at school she had been experiencing bullying that had been escalating. One incident, the girl hit my daughter’s head with the door of her locker when they were changing out books. I talked with teachers, the principal, even the parents of the girls bullying her. Everyone said they were watching, but no one saw the bullying. It got worst. My daughter did not want to go to school anymore. We got Cider halfway through this horrible year. My daughter found her. She brought joy to us the very moments we brought her home, but the bullying continued and grew worst. It cumulated with the parents of the girls bullying her just before I arrived to pick her up after school. She ran out of the school in tears, and those parents had the gall to march into the principal’s office and complain about my daughter. I found this out because I called the principal as soon as we got home, but the front desk would not put me through because she was in a meeting with two parents. I asked if the two were this and that person. The front attendant confirmed that it was. I was so mad. I called my husband told him what was going on and told him to talk to our daughter until I returned. I left her talking to her father and our 2 dogs, Cider was still a little puppy. I went back to the school and barged into the “meeting”. The two mothers had went to work on her, and when she turned to me and suggested that my daughter was manipulating me and everyone around for attention. I let her have it and the other mothers too. I did not lose my temper, but I called them on every lie and falsehood they had concocted to make their daughters appear blameless. I knew my girl. I knew the pain she was bearing and could not escape. I knew her character, even at that tender age. I knew these mothers were exhibiting a special kind of cruelty and the principal was weak and falling for it. I wrote a long letter to the school superintendent after that, citing tons of research about bullying. She received a visit from the superintendent after that. I never saw those mothers again. I picked my daughter up from the back of the school with our two dogs (Cider the puppy still) and I resolved to take her out of the school system that was utterly failing her, and home school her. Luckily she got called to transfer to a magnet school, which was good for I was to be in no condition the coming school year to take on being a home schooler mom. I noticed something else too remembering this… the drama of this period and me standing up to bullies matches almost exactly the drama of 2018 when I stood up to bullies at my place of work, including what would come later in the first weekend of August when I almost died, and then when my beloved father did die.

2015: My husband was forced to retire from his job at the museum. It had been a brutal campaign waged against by people he had worked beside for 23 years. Pretty much it was all simply for money. They wanted the money supporting his small department for their pet projects. We all suffered through it for years after it. He was finally forced out sometime in November.

2016: I was suddenly and unexpectedly laid off from my job as a writer. I had been with the company for six years, but I guess I was a little too outspoken for my station and when the company hit an financial iceberg and workers had to be thrown overboard to save the corporate ship for the captain and his crew, I was chosen along with 6 others to be cast off the ship. It was pretty brutal too. I was told over the phone in not a very kind way 12 days before Christmas. I would be paid all my vacation, which would take me to New Years – and I could get a wonderful $2,000 (probably less after taxes) severance if I just signed this little agreement. I didn’t sign it. It was so convoluted and over the top. I basically was being prohibited from talking about my own life and story for less than $2,000 – who needed that. 

I was completely free to attend the Women’s March. That was marvelous. I interviewed more 36 people—men and women who had come from all over the country to make their voices heard about the 2016 election… the one we are still suffering through now in 2019. I turned these interviews into a documentary. I was compelled to do this because of the story I had begun to write. In my story, there is a good man with a vision to save the good people of Earth from catastrophic climate change events that has utterly reshaped the geo-economic-political landscape of the world. Nation states have fallen. In their place, Corporate states now rule the world. The good man is a CEO of the biggest Multinational Company in the world, but he has vision for how to save humanity and the creatures that still cling to life on a devastated planet. It is nothing less than the transformation of human consciousness on a scale that has never before been achieved, but he has found a way. But just before he gets to the point of conducting the human trials…he is murdered, and the world is turned back over the climate cliff from which they have just climbed back from after going over the first time. The evil one is bent on erasing everything the good CEO was trying to do… and so you see, I had to go to the Women’s March. I needed to hear the stories of all the wonderful and good people of this country and what they were feeling, feared, and hoped.

2017: Tough year. My husband was taking care of his mother and her boyfriend. They had both had close calls with death. This made it necessary for him to spend what was to turn out to be more than 2 years in California helping there. He wasn’t able to look for work. I found a job after more than 6 months looking, but it was a very low paying job and it was going to turn toxic.

2018: My daughter graduated from high school… my pride and joy. I made a movie for my father, mother, and mother-in-law and her significant other to watch since none of them could come to her graduation. During this time, I was working like a mad-woman at this little place where I had found a job writing grants and proposals to help them do their charity work for immigrants and at-risk children and youth. It was I had been doing before being thrown off the corporate ship, before the 2009 great recession when all my consulting jobs as a grant writer dried up as it did for many of my consultants’ friends. We were all struggling then. I was working like a mad-woman because the woman who had hired me had left. The company hired a narcissistic pretender, completely incompetent, to replace her because she had told them I would not be interested in taking her position. She was trying to protect me, but she never told me why. Anyhow, her replacement was fired after two months and so all the work now fell to me and the little company wanted to apply for two huge government grants with only a month lead time. I got very little help. I worked more than 89 hours that I was not paid for. The agreement with the other woman was I would take that time as comp time later… but the CEO was being cagey. I was getting the feeling I would not be paid for this time. Then, my father suffered a cataphoric heart attack, but the first responders brought him back and he had been flown to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Of course, I flew out to be with him. I’ve written extensively of this elsewhere. I will burden you here with how traumatic this time was other than to let you know I was fired by this little organization while I was at my father’s bedside and I was with him when he died. In fact, I had to make the call to move him to comfort care… basically, I had to make the call to stop providing life-saving care and let him die. Oddly, the day and hour my father died is within 12 hours of the day I almost died in 2009.

Since his death, I have suffered tremendously… I guess one could say I had a catastrophic psychological collapse. I have not been able to work since I was fired. I was just starting to feel like I might be able to look again when Cider died. Cider my beloved little doggie who has been by my side through thick and thin. I realize this last year I gave her part of my soul to help carry since I could not any longer, and she gladly took and help to bear my trauma and collapse. And, she helped me cling to hope and to write every day. This was a thread of hope my writing, and Cider was right there at my feet many days gently supporting me…my little furry soul carrier, Cider. And, so this is why I’ve said I cannot bear to post my lost on Facebook for you see, she was so much more than just a dog. She was my bridge back to reality.

2019: Last Christmas was so sad without dad; I began to spiral down into a deep depression. Psychologically I could no longer cope with all the bad things that kept coming one right after another. Neither myself or my husband were anywhere near the station in life that one entering their middle and senior years should be at. Both of us had been cast off the ships of security people need to work on in order to live in our modern, complicated, civilized society… but you see, there is a brutality underneath it, and money is the weapon of choice used to torture and brutalize each other. And then I knew I don’t have it nearly as bad and poor people in Central America or Africa and other places in the world who are beginning to feel the growing effects of Climate Change, which is destroying their ability to grow their own food and so they have to move to migrate. And, what do they get for that? Fear, populism, brutality for trying to survive. It has swept around the world. It has infected pretty much every rich, developed, somewhat stable country who put up walls to keep them out as if they were bringing the plague of bad luck with them… when in fact it is us in the developed world who have inflicted the plague upon the entire world. These poor folks are just feeling it first. They get to die first, then it will come for the rest of us. So, I was aware of this and aware of how much stronger and more resilient they are compared to me, and this made me feel worst. This made me feel weak and useless like a piece of trash that deserves to be thrown away. And, I started to think about myself like that more and more. My husband had to go back to take care of his mom, my daughter was away at college. I was alone with my thoughts as I approached my dad’s birthday. The first birthday I would have to endure without him. I pleaded for my husband to return. But he was not able to. I descended deeper and deeper into my hole of depression. But Cider was with me. Cider needed me. Cider followed me everywhere and kept me company and filled the house with the music of her little feet running and her barking and her howling whenever a firetruck passed near. Cider gave me an island of furry reality with undying love to hang on to as I slipped deeper and deeper down. At first, I could visualize myself walking down a deep gorge, but then I got lost… somehow, I went underwater. I got really bad… suicidal… nightmarish… bad. But I could hug Cider. She would always come to me no matter how bad I got. She didn’t care… she just loved me in her way.

Ever since dad died, I stopped writing my story. I dabbled in blogging and made art, but I could not touch my story. I could not bear to work on it. My dear friend in Colorado got wind of how bad I was doing and jumped in to help me edit the first 200 pages so I could package that much as a self-published book. So, she started, and this gently redirected my attention back to the story that I had committed myself to write back in 2009—the year I almost died. Progress was slow, but about the time I really started to descend, I realized I needed to bring my writing style up to speed with where I was in 2018 rather than where I was in 2012, when I started the story. I was afraid to tell my friend who had started editing, but fortunately she had not sunk too much time into it yet and was so gracious, telling me of course I should do what I needed. And, so as I went down psychologically, I returned to my story, and perhaps it was like an inner invisible thread that I could hang onto no matter how deep I descended… and I went deep, editing and revising fiercely with Cider at my feet. I did not resurface until my husband returned late in July, very near the first anniversary of dad’s death. This was a very difficult time, but I had been working on a video tribute to dad as well as writing daily. All this gave me inner strength… and determination. I marked both anniversaries of dad… his initial heart attack, and then his death, when I was with him. I was thinking why I didn’t feel the cold when dad died, but I realize the vision I had earlier that day of what I needed to do wrapped him and me in a blanket of love. I was pulling him across the glacier near his ancestral home in Norway wrapped inside a bearskin sledge. The sledge was my story. I read it to him that day. It was the only day I had read it to him. I told him he could get off at any point or wait until the end of the story. I told him that his mother and other loved ones who had passed would be waiting for him.  I think that’s why I didn’t feel the coldness of death because I was helping dad cross over to the other side wrapped in a blanket of love. Dad was so proud of this story. He told me before his heart attack that my whole life had been preparing me to write this story. So, there was no fear that day, and I did not know he would die, but when he did… I just hugged him… just like I hugged Cider when she died.

Around dad’s first year anniversary, I had a dream of a woman of rainbow light surfacing far out at sea, turning around, and heading for shore pulling something with her. I am making a video tribute for Cider… you will see her in this video, but I know most of you will not have time to watch it all… it’s long like everything I do. I won’t apologize for that. Life is long and we are supposed to spend this time to go deep and crystalized things rising from inside. It’s painful to do this work, and so most of us skip it… dabbling in the shallow waters of shallow thinking, of hallow dreams, of endless fears… but we’ve been trapped there by our harsh and heartless economic systems, so it’s not our fault we feel so much pain, so much fear all the time. This was the new stuff that started rising around dad’s first year death anniversary. I was trying to edit that section down, but then a voice inside me said: “This needs to be said now.” Then, the back to back shootings occurred and one of my only friends left at my gym where I edit all my material came up to me and said: “You’re writing about it, right?” I was confused, and he said: “What just happened… the shootings… this sickness…. You need to write at least 2 chapters about it.” I said yes that is exactly what I am working on. And, so ever since August, I have been chasing after this new material in the darkness of my mind… chasing it down… taming it with words, then combing the snarls out. I stopped worrying about cutting it even though when I sent to my friend and she aptly pointed out that this new section will make the initial readers put the story down and never pick it up again, while the readers who like this part of the story will not like the rest. I discussed this with my husband and daughter and a friend. My husband brought up Moby Dick. Herman Melville did this. Right in the middle of the action, my husband says he launched into chapter after chapter about whales… detailed, scientific descriptions of them… whale after whale. And, so I continued to write… settled on this will be a book within a book. Again, Cider at my feet most times while I was working on the computer. And, all along… I was getting stronger… I was feeling more myself. I was even beginning to think I might be able to work again. Then, Cider died dramatically and unexpectantly. And, I have stopped writing again. And, I feel myself sinking again.

So, there you go. My super sad story, and it’s not even as bad as so many others have it right now… and so I am a weak and useless louse on top of it all. But I can’t bear to sit at the computer where I was editing a section with Cider at my feet. Cider who was going to dying in just a few short hours, and I was completely oblivious. I had started to reconstruct my persona and a reality… and I got it utterly wrong. I was just so stupid. I didn’t notice. I didn’t see. I didn’t pay attention, even though I had felt certain things were wrong. Maybe that’s what we are doing now en masse to planet Earth. We’re feeling things, but we are telling ourselves stories to make ourselves feel better… stories like we have more time… when we don’t have it at all.

I am spitting into the wind with this post because I know it goes against the grain of the platform and the algorithms—it’s too long, it’s too raw, it’s too honest, it’s not fake. But that is all I have. The best thing you can say to me right now, much better than a crying face or condolences for a lost pet, is to write these three words: “Write the story” or “Finish the story.” I have lost my most faithful, most furry, most loving cheerleader. Those are the most powerful words you can send now. And, I know most of you will not even read this story when/if I finish it, and that is fine too…. I have come to understand this story is most likely not for you. Maybe it’s just for me… maybe it’s just my thread back to reality. I don’t know. But that is all I have. I am empty now. If you have made it this far, my dear friend, thank you for listening and bearing with me to the bitter end of my sad tale of my sad life. I give you my love… that is all we have… that is the only thing we might take with us when we die and all of us will one day die… that is the most certain thing of life… death. I will be posting a tribute to Cider. I don’t want to bother anyone with my crazy art and super long video, but if you would like to know when I post it… most likely I will do so before midnight tomorrow, let me know and I will ping you. And, do not worry… I will be OK. Oh, and please give me time… I cannot bear to be here on Facebook now. It is too shallow for my grief, so please be patient with me if I do not see important message you may post or send me. Slowly I will crawl back. I’ll try to respond, and I will try to share your posts once again as I had started to do on my Sapience the Moment is Now page. But, not now… probably not for time. I don’t know how long.

And, so as 2019 ends: “Goodbye my beloved father for the second Christmas and second New Year, and Goodbye my beloved dog Cider.”