The Round-Tower

We took a few days to recuperate from the pre-Christmas work, but life doesn’t ‘hold’ well. Late Tuesday, December 27th, Micah’s bunny Grayling died. It was very sudden, as these things evidently can be with rabbits, and the whole house was suddenly plunged into mourning. I was at Nancy’s house having coffee and girl talk, when a sobbing dd showed up at the door and requested my presence with the news. The rest of the evening was spent in funeral preparations (which didn’t take place until the next evening due to the hour and dh’s return to work the next morning), and emotional counseling of the bereaved which basically constituted four children and the remaining bunny. My children are convinced that their pets go to heaven and wait for them in their house there, and this thought was voiced repeatedly in hushed and broken tones along with apologies and assumptions of personal (and completely unmerited) guilt (which of course were explained away). We battled the sniffles and sobs with stories of the various shared experiences we’d had with the bunny, and soaked many a tissue when the grief welled anew. I gently reminded the girls that bunnies tend to bond so tightly that they can mourn themselves to death if a companion dies, just in case this should happen, I wanted them to be prepared. While that may yet happen, the bunny seems now in more danger of dying due to lavish attention, feeding, treats and love in an attempt to comfort him and prevent such a loss. I suppose there are worse ways to go.