I never thought I’d cry about an apple tree. But I did when that apple tree was a metaphor forthat has prevented her from performing these last three years—keeping the singer from her fans and thus forcing her to question her worth. There’s one monologue in particular that reveals how her absence from the stage because of her painful symptoms has splintered into a guilt—even a shame—over not living up to what it means to be “Céline Dion.
Her voice catches as she prepares to deliver the next part. She goes silent as her eyes well with tears, as she relays what a fan told her, something that changed her attitude about surviving her disease, performing, and her relationship with all those who adore her. “We’re not here for the apples,” the fan said. “We’re here for the tree.”
However harrowing that is to read, the horrific nature of the debilitating disease is brought to stunning clarity by hearing Dion discuss in great detail how it’s affected her body and, as such, her career. But nothing can prepare you for a sequence in which Dion goes into a full-body spasm, unable to move any part of her body except for two agonizingly contorted fingers. She looks as if she’s in rigor mortis, unable to speak or blink as her therapists tend to her.