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cw: sad animal news

This is not the missive I thought I’d send along after my show closed.

After such a tsunami of stress and effort and joy, six months of vexing preparation boiled down to two wild and breathless weeks of shows. I wanted to tell you all about it: about the brushes with disaster, the miracles that saved the day, the strangers who squeezed my hands, the high school reunions in the bellows of Manhattan.

I thought I’d send reviews, red carpet photos.

I thought I’d be discussing Los Angeles dates with my director over oat milk lattes.

Instead, I found myself in the veterinary ER with my beloved dog baby, Bear, after a terrifying cluster of seizures. I rubbed my face raw with their scritchy tissues as they took his blood and administered IVs.

One MRI later, my whole world changed: Bear is host to a large and inoperable brain tumor.

Prognoses range from weeks to months. I live in this liminal space with him; for how long, I can’t know. I know he is happy. I know he doesn’t know. I know that being present with him is the best gift I can give both of us, as impossible as it feels to me.

I tell him every day that it is his birthday, and he eats baby food in bed, and I never say no when he begs for scraps. I got little canvases for pawprint paintings, and I will dress us up for pictures and get portraits done in the garden. We go for walks and rides to the beach and to dog parties with his dog friends, and I take him for ice cream, and I never miss a moment to kiss the smooth flatness of his forehead.

Please say a prayer for my eternal good boy. It is an honor to walk him home.

xx Jen