My friend Poppy:

William died very peacefully at our vet’s office about 9:45 this morning. I knew yesterday that we’d be taking him in but didn’t want to put a damper on anyone’s Halloween by saying so. He started doing badly on Tuesday night, and by yesterday had lost much of his bowel and bladder control and his ability to walk. He didn’t seem to be in pain, just very weak. We shut down the trick-or-treating early and spent the evening in bed with him, which he seemed to enjoy. (Nov 1, 2007, 10:09am)

Poppy wanted me to thank all of you who contributed to William’s medical fund. Between the vitamin injections, steroid shots, and IV fluids, we managed to make the final days a little easier on him and the rest of the family.

And as agreed, here is the song I recorded to thank you all. It’s Peter Gabriel’s “Here Comes the Flood”, which was a request of Poppy’s. The photo in the clip is of Poppy and William on one of their last nights together.

I could not have put this video together without the invaluable help of newtonusr late, late last night. The guitarist on this track is Ryan Cattle of the Athens band Blue Flashing Light. The session was produced and engineered by my brother, PaTRex.

I’m pretty nervous about putting this up. It’s the first recording of my voice in at least seven or eight years. To me, I sound pretty rusty, but aside from the inevitable sniping I’ll get from people like Ann Althouse (hey, at least I’m better than Sanjaya!) and other bad faith actors, I think we did a pretty good job.

Thanks for helping.

Good night.