rabbit

Break

Posted on by Lauren

She was uncharacteristically angry. Snapping at her sisters with venom dripping from her teeth. 

Emmett and I looked at one another, eyes wide, silently wondering, “What in the actual hell?”

We chalked it up to stress before a big gymnastics meet. Perhaps she was feeling anxious. 

But her seething anger seeped from every crevice until finally, I took her aside and asked, “What is going on?”

And that’s when the dam of tears broke. She broke. 

“I’M SAD ABOUT OREO!”

Ohhhhhhhhh. Yes. This makes a lot more sense, now. 

6 family members. 1 loss. 

So many different coping mechanisms. 

Those that grieve obviously and openly (me). 

Those that grieve and move forward.

And those that bury and try to cope without ever fully addressing it. 

“Harper, trying to contain your grief without openly releasing it is like trying to contain your exploding slime. It will find its way out of its container.”

I encouraged her to write but she didn’t want to. “It will make me sad.” 

But you already are sad. 

Days later, she finally relented. 

She put on the sad music and allowed herself to get washed away in the flood of anguish that is losing a beloved pet. 

It’s too soon to know how much it helped but a writer myself, I know it couldn’t have hurt. 

6 family members. 1 loss. 

So many different coping mechanisms. 

We break. 

Magic

Posted on by Lauren

“Dying on your couch while watching TV by yourself is a tragedy. Dying while doing something you love with every part of your body is magic. I wish you magic.”*

The entire premise of my New Leaf Parenting blog is that “Every Day is a Fresh Start”. There’s a lesson to be found in every great or minute facet of life. 

But sometimes there is tragedy.

As humans, I believe we are built to persevere, to overcome, even in the darkest of times. Surely survivors of The Holocaust and modern atrocities have taught us that. If they survived, we must. 

The truth is, the wind was knocked out of my lungs when my friend called to tell me she had discovered that our pet died the morning after we had left for our longest-ever 10 day vacation. 

He was “just a rabbit”. Not a human, not a dog or cat. Just a rabbit that happened to be my first pet since losing my precious dog to a rattlesnake bite when I was 12 years old. 

He was our first family pet, purchased at the beginning of the pandemic when we decided to homeschool our four daughters then ages, 2, 4, 6 and 8. 

We called him our “therapy rabbit” because he was forever patient- if the girls were loud, he would form into a “loaf”, blocking out the obnoxious sound. When the girls were sad, he would recline next to them, offering unlimited pets. They would nuzzle their face into his and he accepted their grief without question. 

He was my morning coffee buddy and my late-night snuggler. 

He died because he escaped his enclosure, unnoticed before we left town. Our last security video shows me and my husband ensuring his safe keeping but unbeknownst to us, he made his escape and met his end by another animal that night. 

I lie awake, thinking about his tragic, painful, lonely end. Was he scared? Did he feel betrayed by us for leaving town? 

He was so good to us, he deserved better. 

But then I read fiction to escape reality and come across quotes like the one above and I wonder, did he know we were leaving? 

Did he leave before he was left? Not knowing the dangers that lurked in the darkness?

Sometimes there is tragedy and no good lesson to be found. 

But I think I’ll sleep better if I believe Oreo died rebelling, refusing to be domesticated a day longer.

I think I’ll sleep better if I believe in magic. 

I wish you magic. 

* Napolitano, Anne. Dear Edward. New York. Random House. 2020.