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Confession
thejanechord
Diaryland
notifylist.com
2004-01-05
11:33 p.m.
Happy fucking new year.
This morning, I woke up before the alarm because I was so well-rested after the break. I thought I was actually prepared to go back into work. I was rested. I was mentally ready. I was all set. I played with the bunny, who seemed wonderfully active and happy, and I spent some time just drinking my coffee and petting the bunny until it was time to get ready to leave.
Then I got to work.
When I got to work, I expected to be bombarded with e-mails from the last two weeks, and, surprisingly, I wasn’t. I got to work and saw about five e-mails. For about the first hour, I was thrilled. No problem. Five e-mails. And two were from the same person. But then I realized something.
They were five disasters.
It took me all fucking day to respond to these e-mails, and I couldn’t really resolve anything. I sat for an hour and ten minutes collecting financial aid applications from a bunch of students. Then I went to the last class of my Studies in the English Novel class, where the professor provided Starbucks and cookies for everyone. It was really quite nice.
But I didn’t feel entirely right.
When I got off the bus, I heard voices in the alleyway beside my apartment. I hate when people hang out there because it’s miserably dark and out of sight of any major roads or anything. But I got to the door and put the key in the lock, happy to notice that Rob was up to greet me when I opened the door.
“Don’t panic,” he says, “but the bunny’s at the vet.”
The vet? We don’t have a vet. Bunnies are notoriously difficult to find vets for because they’re considered “exotic” pets and not every vet will treat them. But I soon found out that the bunny had developed diarrhea during the day, and Rob took him to the animal hospital as soon as he noticed because we both know that bunnies can die from dehydration in a matter of days if they develop diarrhea.
Rob filled me in on the details.
The animal hospital was keeping Lloyd overnight, and we were to call in the morning. They would give him fluid through an IV, and they would probably give him some antibiotics. I spent the next half hour to an hour cleaning shit out of the bunny cage. Lloyd’s cage is now pristine. All ready for him to come back.
Half an hour later, the vet called back. Lloyd didn’t make it.
What? He didn’t make it? Why?
Rob said the vet sounded shocked. They don’t know what happened. They’ll do an autopsy for $200, and, although I’m very curious, it won’t change a goddamn thing if they tell me what the bunny died from. So they can keep their autopsy.
But goddamn.
This morning, Lloyd was hopping around like a happy little bunny, licking my hands, and laying down to be pet on the ground in front of me. He was a happy bunny. I took good care of him.
They don’t know what the hell happened.
You know, I always thought I wouldn’t get a pet for two reasons. First of all, my parents always told me that I wouldn’t be responsible enough to care for a pet, so I believed them. I’m lazy. I wouldn’t take good care of a pet. And secondly, I most certainly would not be able to deal with the pet dying. Even when Rob bought the bunny for me as a Valentine’s Day present, I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to handle the rabbit dying.
Now I know.
I cried. I don’t cry over much, but I cried when I heard Rob’s reaction to the phone call. And yet, I know that I gave Lloyd the best life he could possibly have had. I played with the bunny every morning and every night, I fed him and brushed him, cleaned his cage, pet him endlessly, trimmed his nails, put up with his eating the baseboards in the apartment and the books on our shelves and the answering machine cord. He was the happiest, friendliest, most personable bunny I’ve ever seen.
And now he’s gone.
The most surprising thing about the whole thing is that I’m excruciatingly sad, and yet I know I made his life the best that it could be. And I do get some satisfaction out of that. Rob and I saved him from the animal shelter and gave him two extra years of life. I can only be happy that I was able to give him that.
But I’ll be sad for a long time, even though he was just a bunny. He was more than that to me. He was the only pet I ever had, and he was a beautiful, wonderful, thoughtful gift from Rob because Rob understood the frustration I lived with having wanted a bunny my entire life. I wanted a bunny for as long as I could remember, but I “wasn’t responsible enough” to take care of the bunny, which is a load of shit because I’m the most responsible person in my family. And, of course, three days after my little sister asked for a bunny, she had a bunny. So, the fact that Rob realized how much it meant to me to be given a bunny as a Valentine’s Day gift is a very big deal.
And Lloyd will be remembered as one of the best gifts ever.
