I’ve been looking at photos of my bunny, Little Bear, all morning reminiscing over the past 7.5 years of our lives together and how she made me smile every day.
My sister first brought Little Bear home almost 8 years ago after an impromptu trip to the mall on a Saturday morning. She passed by the pet store and spotted a teeny-tiny little bun-bun (as we refer to bunnies) with the floppiest ears and knew she couldn’t leave the mall without her. At the time, we had another bunny at home and my sister was afraid of how the two of them would get along (they ended up being bffs up until the day our older bunny passed away 4 years ago). Little Bear was so tiny when she first joined our family:
I remember holding her in one hand and thinking how precious she was. As a baby bunny, she always slept on her side or rolled on her back (with all four paws stretched out in the air) and I would ooooh and awwww whenever I caught a glimpse of her taking a nap. I spent so many loads of laundry on hand towels so she could sit on my desk and keep me company as I worked (Gosh, she was such a cutiepie when she slept!). This only lasted for 2 or 3 months until she grew to be too big for the small space beside my stationery box.
As Little Bear grew older and bigger, we found other ways to hang out. We often watched tv on the weekends together. Rather, I would bring her to the couch with me and sit her on my lap as I watched tv (she was so warm and always fell asleep in my lap). We also hung out in the sun every summer where I’d catch her stretched out on a towel on the front porch, soaking in the rays while leaning on her water bowl.
Being a content stay-at-home-bunny, Little Bear was not a fan of car rides. I used to place her in her litter box and she would sit in my lap bundled in a towel. She seemed to enjoy the lap sitting and staring out the passenger seat window. She also loved to smile for the camera ;)
Starting in 2009, we started making regular trips to the vet because of an infection that formed in her cheek. The infection caused her left cheek to swell to the size of a cherry tomato and we often had to go to the vet to have the built-up fluid extracted. I remember this one time I started crying at the vet’s office during an extraction because she started whimpering so hard and her tear ducts started filling with water. I have never seen my Little Bear in more pain or be more upset in my life. At one point I told my sister I would never go back to the vet again if the visits made Little Bear cry.
Two years later and the infection started to spread to her eye. The antibiotics that she had been on for the past year stopped working and the infection was slowly making its way to her brain. She started doing strange things like soaking her paws in her water bowl and resting her chin on the ledge of her (open-top) cage. I didn’t know her strange behaviours were from the brain infection until last night’s emergency visit to the vet.
We were told that her struggles could no longer be overcome and it was her time to go. I watched as my baby of almost 8 years was taken to a back room and came back swaddled in a towel with an IV catheter in her front paw. I felt my heart sink and the waterworks in my tear ducts burst. I can’t even describe how I felt at the time. Numb is the only word that comes to mind.
The last 18 hours have been so difficult. I can’t stop looking at her litter box hoping to see those floppy ears that I love perk up at the sound of footsteps towards her. I miss spending the first five minutes of my day hand-feeding her treats and being tickled by her little tongue as she licked the crumbs from between my fingertips. Most of all, I miss seeing her sweet face and little smile whenever I walk in the door.
This Little Bear was the light of my life and I am so blessed to have shared the (almost) last 8 years of my life with her.
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