by Nancy Laracy
By late summer, Bunny Boy had become a regular patient at Dr. Welch’s office. His facial abscess had moved into his sinus and thick discharge was coming out of his nose—the respiratory infection called “snuffles.” Bunny Boy had also developed an abscess on his left hock despite the fact that we had resumed the penicillin injections. It had taken me several months to get over the fear of giving him injections again; we had no choice. Sadly, at this point, we had all made the difficult decision that there would be no more surgeries for Bunny Boy, and because of that we seemed to be losing the battle.
Dr. Welch checked his joints and spine regularly for any obvious signs of arthritis. She found nothing but prescribed an anti-inflammatory just in case to make him more comfortable. The kitchen counters were now crowded with tubes of antibiotic creams. Nasal rinses. Sterile mouth washes. Mounds of bandages and syringes. Prescription bottles. And a large carton of Q-tips. The cotton swabs were indispensable for cleaning out the small holes on Bunny Boy’s face and hock. Chris registered his complaint about the Q-tips immediately. “I’ve been asking for Q-tips for close to a year, and I didn’t get a single one. Now Bunny Boy needs Q-tips and he has an economy size box in less than twenty-four hours?”
Dr. Welch would also draw blood at each visit and examine Bunny Boy’s jaw, hocks, and his entire body. Fortunately, his jaw still moved fluidly.
“Bunny Boy eats plenty, and he still purrs. He’s happy—I know he is,” I said during one visit. “I’m not ready to lose him, Dr. Welch.”
“Bunny Boy’s not going anywhere yet,” she replied in her adorable way I’d come to love. “But I’m worried about this abscess on his face.”
So was I. The infection seemed to be spreading deeper into his sinus cavity.
“Bunny Boy definitely has some fight left in him,” she said. “His weight is stable and his vital signs are strong. Let’s switch up the antibiotic and repeat the blood work.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t time.
“There’s always the critical care food if he has a hard time chewing the pellets because his face could be sore,” she added. “He can save his energy for more important things like playing or burrowing and doing things that bunnies love to do!” She was right. And who could have ever imagined that I would be hand-feeding my beautiful mother and Bunny Boy at the same time?
It went like this. Bunny Boy and I would sit on the recliner, and he would suck down his breakfast from a syringe while I watched the lively Katie Couric overshadow her male cohost, Matt Lauer, on The Today Show. It would take almost forty-five minutes for him to eat the recommended amount. In the evenings, I would feed him another twelve syringes of yummy food while we all watched HBO’s Mad Men. As Don Draper smoked and drank, Bunny Boy ate his dinner. After two weeks of being hand-fed, if I was not in the playroom by seven in the morning, Bunny Boy would be sitting at the bottom of the stairs waiting patiently for his breakfast. He had decided that his critical care was far more delicious than his old, has-been pellets!
Bunny Boy’s patience must have run out one morning. Using his limited strength, he tried to climb up the stairs to my bedroom and sadly slid all the way back down. Chris, visibly upset, came into our room carrying Bunny Boy, describing the thuds he had heard.
Despite his ordeal on the stairs, Bunny Boy lunged from Chris’s arms and landed onto my head. He started burrowing in my pillow. “You’re still full of life,” I whispered into his tall ears as I tucked him under the covers and told him it was too early to play. “We’ll eat at a more reasonable hour, Bunny Boy.”
The fall brought even sadder days for me. I had already called my siblings and told them that I didn’t think Bunny Boy would be with us much longer. Those were very difficult words for me to utter. I had come downstairs one morning to find Bunny Boy lying on his side, kicking his front and back legs wildly, unable to get up. I wondered how long he’d been lying that way. I flew over the baby gate we had set up to keep him safe in the playroom at night and placed him on all fours to see if he could stand up by himself. He teetered for just a second, regained his balance, and hopped onto my lap and started licking my face as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
I called Dr. Welch as soon as their office opened at eight o’clock.
“How will I know when Bunny Boy is close to dying?” I asked, fearful that I might have to put him to sleep at some point.
There was no definitive answer but for his blood work, which would show us if he went into renal failure or congestive heart failure.
“Bunnies have an amazing way of hiding their illnesses. Often until it is too late.” I had heard those words before. “Enjoy your time with Bunny Boy,” she said warmly. “I’ll stay in touch.”
Over the years, Dr. Welch had gone above and beyond the call of duty, taking calls from me at the most inopportune times. She always thought nothing of calling me the next day to see how Bunny Boy was doing after we had come in for one thing or another—all while she was raising four children of her own, taking in rescue pets, and mastering any sport or skill that someone said she couldn’t do. We loved her.
Bunny Boy’s blood work came back fine just one more time. He was not suffering from renal failure or congestive heart failure. He was still playful and didn’t seem to be bothered by anything. I knew he was happy.
Eventually, the daily visits to my mother’s, Bunny Boy’s full regimen of care, and keeping up with the house and food shopping and cooking for a six-foot-one-and-still-growing teen started to take its toll on me. I was finding it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. The stress had wracked my body with intense pain and fatigue. In my place, Ward would head down the stairs every morning to greet Bunny Boy in his usual manner.
“Helloooooo, rabbit. Mommy will be down soon.”
One morning, I heard something different. “Hellooo—are you okay, pal?”
I hit the ground running, scaled the gate, and saw Bunny Boy lying on the rug in a way that told me he wasn’t right. I lifted him up and placed him on all fours, but he gave up and laid down again. I whisked him up and tucked him tight against my chest. A profound sadness came over us. Bunny Boy had gone from a feisty, utterly adorable kit whose abilities could rival a high jumper, a race car driver, or a break-dancer to a geriatric bunny with horrible bathroom habits and old, rotted teeth in what had seemed like a blink of an eye—but, still, he had endured with an indelible spirit and an amazing will to survive. I was losing him a little more each day, just as I was losing my mother. Mom was now bedridden. Between the two of them, it was a cruel reminder that we all have to grow old.
“You’ll let me know somehow when you’ve had enough, right, pal?” I whispered, wiping away a lone tear.
I swaddled Bunny Boy in his favorite leopard-print blanket and took him up to my bedroom that morning. I canceled my plans for the day. I lay on the bed beside him and just spoke to him. Bunny Boy rested most of the time instead of playing or burrowing. I could see he was tired and weak. I reminded him how he had turned my and my family’s world upside down with his loving, quirky, upbeat personality. I told him how proud I was of him for never giving up when life threw him one difficult, humiliating curveball after another. I thanked him for his loyalty and companionship, and for his amazing ability to keep me fighting when things got me down. And I thanked Bunny Boy for helping to save my life.
Chris peeked around the corner when he came home from school.
“Bunny Boy’s been going downhill for a while, Mom,” he said softly. “But he’s had a wonderful life. He’s only alive because of the love and care you gave him. We all loved Bunny Boy, but he was your baby.”
I glanced at my lanky seventeen-year-old boy and started to sob. He had so eloquently spoken the words my broken heart needed to hear.
A few days later, Julie came home from college for a long weekend. She laid out the Phi Sigma Sigma sorority crafts she was making for her “little” on her bed next to Bunny Boy, gluing and coloring while she sang him hi
s favorite reggae tune over and over again, tenderly. He slept instead of pillaging her supplies. But they were together. Julie seemed to be preparing herself for the inevitable.
One night, the four of us sat around the family room’s coffee table, looking through photo albums and jokingly counting Bunny Boy’s pictures while he was curled up in a ball on Ward’s chest. Suddenly, Bunny Boy looked so small. We read the Suburban News article together, Bunny Boy’s claim to fame. And we played poker with the deck of Bunny Boy cards.
Halloween passed and the first frost set in. Bunny Boy’s appetite remained robust. His loss of physical strength failed to dull his spirit. He seemed quite content resting in his cozy warren in the lagomorph lounge. But I was becoming distressed as I watched him slow down. I knew my time with him was running out. I didn’t have the faintest idea how to prepare myself—so I didn’t. Instead, I just spent more time with him, lying beside him on the sofa or on the floor—wherever Bunny Boy felt more comfortable. I would kiss his tall ears and twittering nose and tell him how much I loved him. Some nights, we would lie together until one or two in the morning before I would go upstairs to get some sleep. Some nights I would go to bed around eleven o’clock and come back down to the lagomorph lounge around three o’clock to check on him and cuddle some more.
There was one night in particular I will cherish forever. I laid Bunny Boy on his side, across my chest, while Ward and I sat in bed watching the eleven o’clock news. His head was facing Ward. After about ten minutes, he used what little strength he had left to lift his body and reposition himself so he was lying on his stomach with his head looking directly up at me. I leaned down and met his eyes. We stayed that way until my neck was too sore. Quietly, Ward got up and slept in Julie’s room.
I would soon realize the significance of that special moment. Though I didn’t know how to say my goodbyes, Bunny Boy was preparing to say his.
• • •
It was Sunday, November 15. I had just returned home from mass. Bunny Boy seemed to be zoned out. The first thought that struck me was that this was the end. I knew that Kelly and Tanya worked on Sundays at the Franklin Lakes Animal Hospital, caring for the boarded animals even though the hospital was closed. Ward and I drove Bunny Boy over, entering by the back entrance. Kelly checked him over carefully and administered some intravenous fluids. Iron Bunny perked up, as if he had just been given a mocha latte instead of saline. I was confused. His breathing was normal and Kelly could not hear any heart irregularities. He was not in congestive heart failure.
“Sometimes when animals begin to go into renal failure, they don’t drink. Bunny Boy was dehydrated. You can leave him here until Dr. Welch comes in tomorrow morning or you can bring him home and call when we open tomorrow. One of us will be here all night.”
I couldn’t leave Bunny Boy there. I had to be with him.
“Bunny Boy’s fought a long, tough battle,” Kelly said with a smile before we left.
At home that night, I fed Bunny Boy his critical care food, some pureed apples, and melted yogurt drops. I indulged him with all of his favorite things. When he was finished, he hopped on top of one of his old wicker bunny tunnels behind the sofa and looked straight at us for a moment. As if he was trying to tell us that he was still okay. I wiggled my nose up against his.
“I didn’t know you still had it in you, little man.”
It would be Bunny Boy’s last hurrah.
Ward was the first to go downstairs that dreadful next morning.
“Come down right away, Nance.”
The night before, I had gone to bed around three a.m. Chris later told us that he had peeked in on Bunny Boy around five a.m. when he got up to go to the bathroom. Bunny Boy had been curled up like a fetus on the rug. I wish he had woken me up.
I jumped out of bed. Ward was holding Bunny Boy. He gave him to me immediately. There was no moisture or pink color left in Bunny Boy’s nose. His eyes were sunken. His body was limp, and it lacked its usual warmth. His fur looked strangely dull, almost straggly.
“He’s dying,” I wailed, tucking him under my robe. It was seven thirty.
“It’s okay, Bunny Boy, Mommy knows you have had enough,” I whimpered. “I understand if you’re ready.”
My precious boy and I locked eyes. He let out two small scratchy squeals, several seconds apart. Then, his head fell back slightly, his thumper legs extended outward, and Bunny Boy took his last breath—cradled in my arms.
My five-pound bundle of joy had finally given up.
We drove to Dr. Welch’s office with Bunny Boy wrapped in his old leopard blanket. I was still in my bathrobe. I was unable to cry—not yet. I hung onto Bunny Boy for dear life. Dr. Welch was absent that day, gone away for a few days with her family. Kat, another technician, put a stethoscope to his chest and made it official. Bunny Boy had passed to the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.
That’s when my faucets opened—and they didn’t stop. My tears flowed onto Bunny Boy’s lifeless body as I told him how much I loved him and how much I would miss him.
“I can’t believe today has really come, Mrs. Laracy,” Kelly remarked softly. “We all got used to Bunny Boy making it through everything. He was a good sport and a real fighter.”
“He was,” Ward managed to say.
“You were such a good boy, silly,” I blubbered. “You were my inspiration, you beautiful, crazy, little animal. What am I going to do without you?”
I spent those final moments loving my bunny, thanking God for the miracle of his entire life.
“He waited for you, Nance,” Ward said, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my teary cheek. “You got your wish.” And I had. Bunny Boy had died in the warm, safe embrace of my arms.
We gave Kat instructions to have Bunny Boy cremated individually instead of together with a group of other animals, as vets sometimes do. Then I handed my little boy over to Kelly, as I had done so many times before. Only this time, Bunny Boy wouldn’t be coming back.
• • •
I walked into the house in a daze. I looked up the foyer stairs toward the lagomorph lounge and ran up and sat in the recliner where I had fed Bunny Boy for the past four months and spent countless nights with him on my lap. It didn’t seem possible that Bunny Boy was gone. I grabbed our special pillow and hugged it. It was still covered with some dried food and strands of his fur.
Chris poked his head out of his room. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I miss Bunny Boy already.” Then he closed the door to grieve in his own teenage way.
I called Julie. Bunny Boy’s number-two girl was at a loss for words. Then I called Donna, who was at my front door in ten minutes. We sat on the sofa and reminisced about some of our fondest memories with Bunny Boy, in particular, the day we had been mistaken as a couple at the AMC.
I looked around the room at all of Bunny Boy’s things—his toys, his bowls, his wicker tunnel. The lagomorph lounge would never be the same.
“It is going to take a long time, Nance,” said Donna, reaching for my hand.
“It was like losing a baby, Donna.”
“You nursed him for almost nine years,” she said kindly. “He was your baby.”
“That’s what made Bunny Boy so special. He needed me as much as I needed him.”
Early that afternoon, I drove to my mother’s. We laid together in her hospital bed and she wrapped her frail, thin arms around me.
“I really loved that rabbit,” she whispered, kissing my cheek.
It seemed like just yesterday that my mother had shown up at five thirty in the morning to drive into New York with Bunny Boy and me, when I was so sick.
“I need to know that Bunny Boy is okay, Mom—that he’s peaceful.”
“Bunny Boy’s with your father now, sweetheart,” she said. I prayed he was.
When Carol came home from work, we cried together and talked about her rabbit babysitting days. Boarding Bunny Boy at their house shortly after their own cat and dog had died was just the therapy they needed a
t the time.
Finally, I visited Loretta at Scuffy’s.
“I should have stayed with Bunny Boy the whole night,” I said tearfully, regretfully. “I didn’t know he was dying.”
I could see her trying to hide her own tears. “Bunny Boy didn’t want you to see him at the end,” she reassured. “He wanted you to remember him the way he was.”
“But he was alone. I would have—”
“Bunny Boy died in your arms. That’s what’s important.”
There was something important I needed to express. “I need to know that Bunny Boy is happy. That he’s okay,” I said, once again.
“Bunny Boy had a wonderful life. He lived longer than most healthy rabbits.”
I reached into my pocket and handed Loretta one of my favorite pictures of Bunny Boy, which I usually kept it in the glove compartment of my car. Bunny Boy was sitting on the “King of the Castle” chair with his wicker ball. He couldn’t have been more than three years old. I said a teary goodbye to Loretta and the rest of the staff and started down the windy road toward home.
I drove through the darkness, my eyesight blurred by my tears. Visions of Bunny Boy as a kit flashed through my mind. The days of litter training and chewing. The days of youthful binkying and pranks. When I turned the corner onto our street, it seemed darker than usual. I flipped on my high beams—and, out of nowhere, a bunny dashed across the bright stream of light from the lawn on one side of the road, stopping in the middle of the asphalt. He looked at me through my windshield, much like a deer caught in headlights. For a second, I thought I had imagined it. I quickly put the car in park and stared at the bunny. He hopped closer to the car bumper and looked at me more intently, as if he felt my gaze. Then, without further ado, he scampered off into the woods, free as a bird.