Oh, Izzy, you are the happiest, most cheerful and energetic of creatures, how sad to see you suffer and become so weary and dispirited before my eyes. It is hard to bear, and I am so glad I had a good and long cry with you tonight, lying in my lap by the computer where you have spent so much time with me. You have been the perfect dog in so many ways. Despite living alone on a farm for years, you were the most generous and loving of creatures. You did your hospice work, and then you helped Maria enter our lives and sat with her to do her work in her Studio.
Sitting here in my lap, looking at me in the most pleading of ways, I have to be so careful not to put my words into your head, because your eyes are telling me in the most powerful and distinct and wrenching way that you are tired, and you are hurting, and you are asking me to let you go. And so we will do that. Maria and I have talked, and we have talked with our vets, and there is nothing reasonable or realistic that we can do for you that will not cause you the most prolonged and uncertain kinds of suffering. So we will give you the gift and the honor of letting you leave the world in peace and comfort and dignity, as you helped so many people do.
I remember our first hospice visit, to Glen in the Adirondacks and one day, after he came to know you well, he put his hand on your head and he said, “Izzy, I am tired and I am ready to leave the world. I want to go,” and he died with his hand on your head. You helped him leave this life the way he wished to go. The last few days, that is the message I have been getting from you, and the same message I want to send you: time, dear friend, to go in peace, to let go. No more suffering. In our time, people sometimes seem shocked at the idea that animals die, and they sometimes cling to the idea that they can and ought to be kept alive forever, just as people cling to the same idea. Death is hard to face. We want everyone to live in a painless and no-kill world.
Oh, Izzy, you know better than any creature in the world that there is no such place on this earth, but perhaps there is one beyond, given the love you have offered and the good you have done and the loyalty you have shown in your sometimes very hard existence.You began your life as a wild and abandoned creature and then entered a life of love and service. You brought me nothing but joy. You were the best media hound I have ever known, and you loved the life of the celebrity dog, the attention and affection and the camera much more than chasing sheep.
Tomorrow we will say goodbye to you, and we will bring you home to the farm and bury you in your favorite place. Even though we will be leaving you and this place sometime soon, we believe your spirit will best rest here, where you lived so happily and did so much good. I do not expect to meet you in any other life, nor do I ask that you wait for me by any bridge. I know your spirit will always be with me. Your work here was great. Your work here is done.
At the end of your time, I can offer you nothing but love and gratitude.
Tomorrow, may your load lighten, your struggles cease, your pain melt away.
Fly to Paradise, Izzy.