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Epitaph in Katakana, For Anne and My Son
by Yoshio
Satoh
@Prologue
In Japan, owing to advances in medical technology, the
situation with regard to intractable diseases once thought to be incurable has
been steadily improving, which benefits many patients. Heart transplants,
after a hiatus of several decades, have been resumed here so that patients
suffering from severe heart disease may await a transplant in their home
country, without relying on treatment overseas. Advances in gene therapy are
also inexorably penetrating the unknown details of dread diseases.
I
have been working close to, and yet far away from, this kind of medical
environment for nearly forty years, as an experimental animal technician at a
national university. In our lives, we often go through bittersweet
experiences, and repeatedly meet and part with many people. Prominent among
these encounters is a woman I shall never forget. Her name is Anne Ross. She
was an English woman who suddenly appeared in front of me, and then just as
suddenly disappeared. I have written this story so that readers may
contemplate, through Anne's example and her way of being, what is truly
important in the relationship between human beings and animals, and recapture
"something important" we Japanese seem to have forgotten.
@Introduction
More than thirty
years ago, the science of working with experimental animals was still at its
dawn. With only workshops and no associations existing, it was not fully
systematized as a science. Experimental animal services in universities were
only breeding facilities called "animal houses" and there were few actual
laboratories. Researchers and technicians had to work soiled with waste, in an
environment without air-conditioning. As a rule, the animals used in
experiments should be genetically and microbiologically controlled, but such
animals were extremely expensive. With the low budgets at that time, we had to
rely on mongrel animals. Rats and rabbits bred as a sideline by farmers, dogs
and cats collected from municipal animal pounds were the kinds of animals
used.
This was when Anne came to Japan. In Western countries,
specially bred animals were already being used in experiments. She came from
England, where legislative provisions for animal welfare had been made half a
century ago, and the conditions she witnessed and experienced here surprised
and agonized her. Still, through her work, she strived to highlight the
importance and preciousness of animal life to all within reach. Unfortunately,
she became ill and passed away without fulfilling her ambitions. Yet the seeds
she sowed in Japan did not fall on barren soil, but eventually sprouted and
took root. The existence of this foreign lady in Japan has long since been
forgotten, but it would please me if I could pass along, to everyone reading
this story, her thought that "human life rests upon immeasurable sacrifices
by countless experimental animals".
@Meeting
Anne
I first met Anne in the
postoperative recovery room that housed dogs after experiments, located on the
rooftop of a former tuberculosis ward. At the time, as the animal laboratory
manager, I was in charge of maintaining the equipment and cleaning each room.
That day, after finishing cleaning the operation laboratory, I climbed the
stairs to clean the recovery room on the rooftop. When I reached the rooftop,
I saw an unfamiliar foreign woman washing the room with a hose in hand. I
first thought that she was one of the foreign students or foreign researchers
who came up from time to time, but I had never seen a student or researcher
actually cleaning up the place.
She noticed me standing there, and
greeted me with a smile. Of course she spoke in English, so I had no idea what
she was saying. I only smiled back awkwardly and returned to the management
office, feeling somewhat disconcerted. And she was there again the next day.
Not only was she again cleaning the room with a broom, she was also feeding
the dogs with canned food and milk. Since I was in charge of the management of
those dogs, and they were my responsibility, I half resented her feeding the
dogs more than necessary, but I was not able to communicate due to the
language problem. I therefore sought help from a professor in the animal
management committee, and discovered that she had come to work under the
auspices of another animal committee professor. I was told that a corporate
animal welfare organization had unofficially requested that Anne's wish to
come to Japan be accepted, and so it was.
@Anne's
objective
Anne was a member of the Royal
Society of Animal Welfare in England, but was also registered as a member of
the Japanese Society of Animal Welfare. Both Societies, having the same
objective, were in touch with each other and made Anne's visit to Japan
possible, though she traveled almost completely at her own expense. Beginning
with the 'top universities' of Japan, she then engaged in educational
activities at universities in the Tohoku area, and later came to the
university where I worked. I heard that before coming to Japan she had worked
in Western countries, where animal welfare policies were still in their
infancy.
The experimental animal environment in Japan at that time was
a total disaster. Breeding rooms and laboratories had no air-conditioning, so
both human and animals stayed together in boiling heat in the summer and
freezing cold during the winter. Leftovers from nearby markets and from the
staff cafeteria were cooked in large pots as food for the dogs and cats. Since
the leftovers were not carefully screened, cigarette butts and pieces of cups
were often mixed in. In the summer, the food would quickly turn rancid,
filling the room with an awful stench. In such an environment, the dogs and
cats we received almost free of charge were not long able to survive and many
died daily, even before experiments could be carried out. Often, those that
survived and were used in experiments died before meaningful results could be
achieved, and were disposed of.
The breeding house for dogs on the
rooftop was windswept, with no protection. Some dogs froze to death, while a
sweltering heat from the floor incapacitated others. There was not one dog
that seemed healthy. Since there was no quarantine system, once distemper or
any other disease broke out, infection spread unchecked, and many puppies were
lost. This sad situation was reported to the Society of Animal Welfare
headquarters via the Kansai Department, by outpatients, inpatients, and people
living near the facilities, and a request for improvement was made several
times. However, in a situation where rubber gloves and bandages used by human
patients were repeatedly washed and reused for experiments, and surgical
knives and scissors were all rusted, special consideration for experimental
animals seemed out of the question. This situation was not only present in the
university I worked for, but was more or less the same in universities
elsewhere. If such was the situation in the medical school of national
universities, you can imagine what it was like in other universities. Anne
heard about this situation in England and simply could not stand still. She
just had to come to Japan and see the status of the experimental animals
herself, and make any improvement she could.
@A true animal
technician
Three months had passed since
Anne started to come daily. When we met, I would say hello to her, but I was
still wary. One day, I heard a dog leashed in the treatment room shrieking. I
thought, "Oh, not again!" and headed for the treatment room. Three
researchers were holding the dog down and trying to give it an anesthesia
injection. The dog was frothing at the mouth, and its eyes were bloodshot. The
wire wound tightly around its neck seemed liable to break. They probably had
tried several times as there were syringes on the floor, all with bent
needles. I had lots of experience and was quite confident that I could perform
the anesthesia procedure, so I told the researchers to step aside. I shortened
the wire around the dog's neck, strongly pulled its hind legs, and was about
to make the injection when I heard a voice from behind yelling, "Stop!"
I turned around and saw Anne standing there with a very sad face. In
broken Japanese and with gestures, she told me to step aside. She also asked
me to hand her the syringe. I also used gestures to tell her that the dog was
very excited and too dangerous for her to handle, but she did not listen.
After repeating her argument, I had to hand her the syringe. I decided to
watch close by, so that I could help her if the dog tried to bite. Anne put
the syringe into the pocket of her lab coat and sat near the dog. The floor
was soiled with feces and blood, but she seemed not to care.
Holding
her body lower than the growling dog, she started talking to it. Since it was
in English, I did not understand what she was saying, but I imagined she was
saying something like, "You poor thing. Sorry to have frightened you," or
"I am not going to hurt you." She kept on gently talking to the dog and
gradually went closer. When the dog began to calm down, Anne spit saliva onto
her hand and put it in front of the dog. What a surprise! The dog that had
kept on growling for so long licked Anne's saliva. As the dog was licking,
she patted the dog from the top of its head to its back and the dog became
completely tame. The anesthesia procedure then was done smoothly using its
front leg, without any resistance.
@Reflection
That sight struck
me like a blow to the head. I had believed that I was the most proficient
practitioner of this kind of procedure in the entire university. I thought I
had a technique even beyond that of doctors, but after seeing how Anne so
skillfully handled the unpleasant situation, I lost confidence in my technique
and was utterly crestfallen. Anne's humane and sensitive actions made me
notice how ignorant I had been and from that day forth, I became her follower.
I sought advice from her not only about anesthesia techniques but also
on anything related to working with experimental animals. As a result, I
started to have grave doubts about the content of the Japanese technical books
I had studied. We still had communication problems, but I could understand her
belief and true objective that "even technicians should be concerned with
animal welfare, and should aim for animal experiments without cruelty." As I
spent time with Anne, I was able to naturally learn a new attitude towards
animals, which I had never even imagined before, such as; "rather than trying
to tame the animals, try to be friendly with them," or "even if you know
that the animals are going to die, do not handle them badly," or "similar
dogs are loved by their masters for their whole life," and so on.
@Sudden
return
My initial suspicion of Anne was
totally resolved, and we had many chances to share coffee or tea together in
my office. She never showed off her techniques. She only helped me when it was
necessary. I heard from the persons in charge of breeding that she did not
even take Sundays or holidays off, but would come to clean up. There were
about seventy dogs on the rooftop and ten in my management area. Taking care
of nearly one hundred dogs could easily take up a whole day but in addition to
cleaning, if you include walking the dogs and their postoperative care, she
worked everyday until nine o'clock. I sometimes slept over at the office to
help during experiments, but when I woke up at eight o'clock the next
morning, she would already be at work.
Soon, it was almost a year
since I first met Anne. One day she, who was so very committed to her work,
suddenly did not appear. I first thought she might be sick in bed, but she did
not show up for a whole week. I asked a professor who knew her whereabouts
well what had happened. He told me that she was ill and had been admitted to a
hospital somewhere, but he did not know where to get in touch, so I could not
even visit her. After a while, one Monday morning, the person in charge of
breeding called me and said, "I forgot to tell you, but a friend of Anne's
came over on Sunday and left a box to give to you. She seemed to be in a
hurry." I rushed over to the breeding office and picked up the box from Anne.
Inside were a pack of Hi-Lite cigarettes and a bottle of whiskey, together
with a letter.
The letter was written in awkward "katakana" (a
phonetic Japanese alphabet) saying, "Satoh-san, thank you. I am going back to
England. Please take care of the dogs. Anne Ross." For a second, I could not
understand what it meant. I wondered why she had to go back to England. Maybe
she had some urgent business or something. At that moment, I could not begin
to imagine that she had to return because of a severe illness. I was initially
optimistic that she would return to Japan but as I read her letter over, I
started to think that perhaps I would never see her again. If she thought she
would come back, she probably would not have written, "Please take care of
the dogs." I reread her letter many times, until the letters began to blur,
and tears kept falling from my eyes. How did she feel when realized she had to
go back? I can now easily imagine how she felt to have to leave the dogs
behind but at that time, I was totally in a daze. Her physical and mental
strength had probably been stretched to their limits.
@Anne's
agony
My heart was full with memories of
from when I first saw Anne until the time she left. She never showed bad
feelings towards me, even though I first took such an arrogant attitude
towards a respectable English animal technician such as herself. On the
contrary, every time we met, Anne would smile and say good morning and hello
in the Japanese she had learned. I told her to wash the blankets and bandages
soiled with excrement using the washing machine in my office, but she said
that she did not want to cause me any trouble, and would take them to the
rooftop and wash them using a metal basin and washboard. In winter, her poor
beautiful hands would become chapped and frostbitten. She would stay up all
night nursing postoperative dogs that were progressing poorly and were about
to die. A flood of such memories flashed before my eyes.
Even after we
met she had trouble with certain breeding technicians and researchers, as she
would feed the dogs bread and milk she had bought herself, in addition to the
usual solid food. She was always quarreling with those people about her
feeding the dogs, because they gave what she though was an absurd reason for
not doing so, namely that the amount of droppings would increase and would be
bothersome to clean up. Researchers complained that they felt uneasy because
Anne would point out their poor handling of the animals every time they tried
to perform experiments. Knowing the way experimental animals were treated in
her home country, Anne was probably in a quandary about why people in Japan
did not understand what she was trying to accomplish.
With increasing
frequency, she would visit my office after work, sit in a corner chair, and
smoke and drink whiskey heavily. If I had been able to speak English, I would
have been able to listen more attentively to her agonizing. She looked very
sad, drooping her head and slouching while she drank. The gift that she left
me might have been a sign asking me to speak up for her.
I had heard
of an episode where, before she came to our university, a TV station found out
about her activities and asked her to appear on a program. Even during taping,
she would say, "Right now, while I am sitting here, dogs are suffering," and
would offer the interviewer heartfelt remonstrations. This shows how deeply
she worried about the plight of the animals. Perhaps she was resigned that no
matter how vigorous her appeals about the present sorry state, only a few
Japanese would understand her. Anne was a perfectionist with all she did, and
hated dishonesty. So, taking her personality into account, the fact that she
had to return to England meant that she must have been severely ill, but at
that time, I thought emotional entanglement, rather than disease, was the
reason.
@Sad
notice
Due to the emotional and physical
strain of her work, Anne weakened her liver, and had to return to England.
Then a year passed without any news about her. During that interval, to spread
the word about how wonderful a person Anne was, I took advantage of several
opportunities to talk with staff members at magazines dealing with the subject
of experimental animals, and with other people involved in the field. I also
went around the country to talk about how behind the times Japan was in
matters of animal welfare.
One day, I unexpectedly received an
envelope from someone I did not know. The sender was a person in Tokyo, and in
the envelope there was a Japanese letter, an English letter, a copy of a
translation of a magazine article I had written about Anne, and a photo of
Anne. The sender was Ms. H, a friend of Anne's, and she had translated and
sent me a letter that Anne's mother wrote to me. It was a notice of Anne's
death. Anne's mother wanted to let me know, so she asked around and finally
tracked me down. Anne had been hospitalized after her return to England, but
she did not recover. The letter said that Anne had passed away, with many
friends standing by her side. It also said that Anne had worried about the
dogs in Japan until her last minute, and that she regretted the fact that she
had to leave her work behind. Her mother wrote, "I have read the translation
of the article you have written. It is a saving grace that at least some
people in Japan did understand what Anne was trying to do. Thank you Mr.
Satoh." Reading her letter, I felt very sorry, but at the same time, I also
felt relieved. Enclosed were photos of Anne attending her friend's wedding
and of Anne's tombstone with her dog sitting next to it.
Epitaph in katakana
Looking at the
photo of Anne smiling, wearing a beautiful dress, I thought about her
mother's feelings. While Anne's friends were getting married and
living a happy life, she came to Japan alone, worked herself to the
bone, and returned to her country sick. Even though she tenaciously
followed her desire, and worked tirelessly in foreign countries, she
must have been mortified. With nobody to talk to, she must have felt
very lonely. These likely feelings of Anne's mother stabbed my heart
with pain. At the end of the letter, it said, "On the tombstone,
Anne's name is engraved in katakana also. That way, if you or any other
Japanese visit England, it would be easy to find her." I took a closer
look at the photo and found "Anne Ross" in katakana. At that moment my
mind was made up. I would travel to England without fail and visit
Anne's grave. I would convey to her mother how grateful I was to have
met Anne, and tell her about the present situation in Japan. |
@To England
Ten years passed since Anne passed away. During this time, I
continued to exchange letters with Anne's mother. At the end of her letters,
she would always write, "Come and visit England, where Anne grew up." My
work place was totally renovated. The old building where Anne had worked was
reduced to rubble. In the newly built research building, there was a fine
animal laboratory, and in the breeding area on the rooftop of another
building, a humble breeding room with cinderblock walls was built.
Air-conditioning was installed to mitigate the effects of winter cold and
summer heat, and the death rate of the dogs decreased dramatically.
Researchers became aware of the need for ethical handling of animals,
so the death rate during and after experiments also decreased. At last, the
spirit of animal protection, which Anne had aimed for, had started to flower.
In the breeding section, young people were doing well, and walking the dogs
around the rooftop became a daily routine. Though there was still plenty of
room for improvement, we had made great strides compared to when Anne was
there. If she were alive, she would have been surprised with all the changes,
and would have been very happy. My desire to visit Anne's grave in England
had been growing stronger year by year, and it seemed that the time was right.
Finally, I could wait no longer, and started to prepare for my visit.
 Meeting Anne's mother
A private trip to England was a costly matter. I searched
around for an inexpensive tour, and decided on a plan staying in London for
only two days. Since I was taking my wife and son with me, I decided to go
during the summer vacation season. On the night we arrived at London, I asked
our tour conductor to make a phone call to Anne's mother. The conductor told
Anne's mother that we would be arriving at her place around ten o'clock next
morning. After the conversation was over, the conductor handed the phone to
me. I was a bit embarrassed, so I could only manage a brief greeting. I heard
Anne's mother's voice over the phone for the first time, but rather than
being thrilled, I was so nervous that I do not even remember what I said.
The next morning, we got into the taxi our tour conductor had reserved
for us, which was waiting in front of our hotel. From there on, we were on our
own, with no one to rely on for assistance with English. The driver was a
South American. Though I realized he was trying to be friendly, ever since the
previous night's conversation with Anne's mother, I felt lost in a sea of
English. I could tell from ends of his words that he was talking about his
family and telling us that very strict qualifications had to be met to become
a taxi driver in London, but all I could do was nod.
When we first
started exchanging letters, Anne's mother was living in London city. She
eventually moved to a suburb about fifty kilometers away from the city, and I
had her new address. I imagined that Anne's grave was nearby. After a
two-hour drive, we came close to the address, but the driver was not sure
which house was our destination. He would ask the people walking, but we
seemed to be going around in circles. Finally, we reached the house way past
the time I told Anne's mother we would get there. We had reserved the taxi
for the whole day, so I asked the driver to please wait for us.
I
stepped up to the house and rang the doorbell. The thought of meeting Anne's
mother made me nervous, and my legs were even shaking. The door opened. A
silver-haired small woman jumped out of the house and I ran up to her too. We
did not need any words. We looked into each other's eyes, shook hands, and
hugged each other again and again. My long-time wish had finally come true and
I could not help crying. I had imagined a large woman, but on the contrary,
Anne's mother looked rather like a Japanese grandmother, and not an English
woman. She reminded me of my own mother who had passed away when I was young,
so I soon felt a sense of closeness.
 
@Anne's memento
Anne's mother showed us
into her living room. In her letter, she said she was living in a retirement
apartment, but it was actually a simple yet elegant independent house with a
lawn all around it. The kitchen and bathroom were more than adequate and many
niceties, typical of a welfare state, had been seen so that an elderly person
could live comfortably alone. A scroll picture that I had sent her was on the
wall, together with the same photo of Anne I had received. There were two cats
in the bedroom. For a moment, I was worried that Anne's mother might be
lonely, but hearing that a helper came every week to take care of the lawn and
that Anne's younger sister and her family was living nearby, I felt relieved.
We enjoyed a delicious English-style milk tea that Anne's mother
prepared for us. I spoke in my broken English with a dictionary in one hand,
and Anne's mother kindly talked slowly for me. Pointing at the photos on the
wall, she showed me her husband, who had already passed away, and her
relatives. She then told us to wait where we were, and went into another room.
She came back with a double-decker bus toy, like one we saw in London, a glass
ball with coral sealed inside, and a wooden box. She handed them one by one to
my son, wife, and myself, and said they were gifts for each of us.
Inside the wooden box, I found a "netsuke" (a small, carved,
Japanese accessory) of two rabbits cuddling close together. The composition
was similar to a Japanese wildlife caricature, so I asked about it. Anne's
mother told me that it was a gift that Anne had bought in Japan for her. I was
surprised that Anne's mother was now giving it to me, so I told her that I
could not possibly receive it. I certainly did not wish to receive such a
precious item, which might have been Anne's only memento. Though I kept on
telling her so, Anne's mother said to me, "It is better off with you." When
Anne first saw the netsuke, she probably thought it expressed how much the
Japanese cared about animals. She must have been shocked and saddened on
seeing the actual situation in Japan. I imagine she felt and hoped that deep
down in Japanese people, there must be caring feelings hiding somewhere, so
she gave this netsuke to her mother. I decided to accept the gift gratefully.
We gave Anne's mother a Japanese fan and "origami" (paper used to
fold and create small figures) as gifts in return and she seemed very
impressed with them. My wife taught her how to fold a crane using the origami
paper. Anne's mother folded one herself, and put it on the cupboard in the
living room. Though our conversation was mainly one-sided, I felt we did not
need words in order to reach each other's hearts. I was very happy that we
were able to understand each other well enough.
@Visiting Anne's
grave
After our pleasant talk, it was time to go
to the graveyard where Anne now rests. All four of us got into the taxi, and
Anne's mother explained to the driver how to get there. We arrived in no
time. Anne's younger sister, a beautiful woman just like Anne, was waiting
for us at the graveyard. She lives right nearby and takes care of Anne's
grave. We introduced ourselves, and then headed for Anne's grave. Suddenly, I
remembered that I had forgotten something important. In Japan, we always bring
flowers and incense sticks when we visit graves. I imagined that Western
countries have a tradition of offering a wreath of flowers to the grave. I
remembered this when I was at our hotel, but completely forgot about it as
soon as we got into the taxi. As we headed for the grave, I apologized to
Anne's mother and sister about this, and soon we reached the site.
Just as in the photo I received, her tombstone was an enchanting size
and had "Anne Ross" engraved in English and in katakana. I stood in silence
for a while. Then, I walked up to her grave with deep emotions, my heart
overflowing. I finally was able to keep my promise to Anne's mother. While
putting my hands together, I thought of the days I had spent with Anne. Tears
fell from my eyes in a torrent and the only words I could find were, "Thank
you. I am sorry." She must have been waiting for a Japanese person to visit
her grave for a long time. Thinking of how heart-breaking it must have been
for her when nursing the many sacrificed dogs, the only thing I could do was
apologize. Was there nothing more I could have done for her? I had asked
myself this question daily until this visit. Now, standing in front of her
grave, I could only pray that her soul would rest in peace. My four-year-old
son stood bashfully beside me, and my wife also prayed in front of the
tombstone. My long-time dream had finally come true.
I felt that I
could never stay long enough, but soon it was time for us to go. We went back
to the taxi, and took Anne's mother and sister home. We felt the sorrow of
having to part right up until our final farewell. They both were crying and
waved their hands to our taxi for a long time as we drove away. This scene was
seared into my memory forever.
@Anne's
gift
The gift that Anne gave to us Japanese is
love and friendship regardless of species. She treated experimental animals
just as a doctor or nurse would tenderly treat a severely ill patient fighting
a disease, perhaps with even greater compassion. She put her life on the line
to care for hundreds of experimental animals that, at the time, were handled
more like test tubes or beakers, replaceable things that if broken could be
easily replaced. In an age when people even killed their kin, she took the
pain of the animals as her own, in a country far away from home.
After
Anne's death, there was a time when I gave a few drops of water to a dog
whose fate was to be killed after an experiment. I could not give a lot, for
it would increase the risk of vomiting during the experiment, so only a few
drops. A researcher watching this asked me, "What are you doing?" I
answered, "I am giving the dog its deathbed water." After the experiment was
over, I saw that researcher praying in front of the dog's dead body. It was
the moment when Anne's gift reached the heart of that researcher. When there
are enough researchers like him, we will enter an age when Japan finally is
sensitive to animal welfare, as Anne had wished. I was again convinced that
human and animal welfare are inexorably linked.
@In
closing
It has been more than twenty years since
Anne passed away. The university I work for has undergone countless changes.
Both in name and reality, the number one experimental animal facility in Japan
is in operation there. Not only is it the largest, it is also managed in
accord with many aspects of animal welfare practice, such as air-conditioning,
adequate staff, thorough educational curricula for students and researchers,
and so on. At present, I am not in this department anymore, but every time I
go past this facility, I always think if only Anne could have seen it.
There is no memento of Anne left in this new facility, but her spirit
lives on. This is true not only in this university, but also in universities
around the country. In experimental guidelines now, the words "animal
welfare" are always used. However, almost none of the current personnel know
that an English woman came to Japan long ago, to ease the animals' suffering,
and that experiments were done under barbarous conditions. They have worked in
a clean environment from the beginning, and thus think that it is a normal
thing. Perhaps it is fate that the sorry history of experimental animals, the
sordid side of medical progress, together with Anne's epitaph in katakana,
might be forgotten by the Japanese people.
@Epilogue
This story is based on a
self-published book I wrote after I returned from my visit to England. I
published five hundred copies and gave them for free to people for whom these
events have meaning. The title of the book was For Anne and My Son. More than
ten years has passed since its publication, and my book and Anne's grave seem
to have long been forgotten.
One day, however, I was looking at an
Internet homepage of a person who is engaged in welfare activities for pet
animals. There I found a message saying, "I am looking for Mr. Satoh's
book." I wanted to give a copy of my book to that person, but I only had two
copies left, which I wanted to keep for my son. I thought that perhaps I could
use the opportunity to re-edit my book, and rather than self-publishing it,
have it commercially published so that people could find it in bookshops. I
wanted as many people as possible to know about Anne's grave.
I
contacted several publishers, but with the current recession and all, none
seemed willing to publish this story. I then thought of a way to have many
people read my story, and decided to create my own homepage. Only a few people
might notice it at first, but I hope that the number will gradually grow. I am
not very at home with computers so, needless to say, it was my first
experience with creating Web content. I am worried about expressing my
feelings well enough, but if the people reading my story feel even a slight
bit of sympathy, and increase their appreciation of the sacrifices that so
many animals have made for the betterment of humanity, I believe that Anne's
heart's desire will be fulfilled.
E-Mail toragisu@rinku.zaq.ne.jp
Please feel free to link to this site and spread the
word.
Anne's mother is still in
good health. If you would like to send her a letter of thanks or
encouragement, please send me an E-mail message, and I shall let you know her
address.
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