Bailey

     Our rescued rabbit Bailey (aka Bentley) died last night. He was discovered in his hutch with his mate Oreo snuggled up beside him, much to our sadness. He came to us via a newspaper article written about an arrest which consequently left a dog and a rabbit abandoned at a house in White Rock. They both had car names: Bentley, the rabbit and Mustang, the dog. Mustang was quickly adopted. Bailey's photograph was so cute that we could not resist adopting him. It seemed we were the only ones that wanted him anyway. A neighbour Ruth had been feeding him through the chicken wire that provided him shelter under the stairs. He proved to be quite a challenge to catch but eventually I nabbed him and he came home to Creekside. He lived with us for several years and so it was sad to lose him.
      Childhood is fraught with pet deaths it seems. I know mine was marked by consecutive dog deaths; sometimes they got run over by a car, sometimes they died of old age. It was really how I learnt about death. On a small farm like ours there are many funerals; we have buried dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks, even baby chickens and song birds. Bailey's eulogy was very moving and read as follows: "Bailey was a good rabbit. He was happy, fuzzy, sweet, cute, hungry, loving, soft, brown, frisky and he loved apples, carrots and Oreo." It seems it was important to have ten good things to say about Bailey, very much like the little boy in The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, a wonderful children's book about loss by Judith Viorst.
     Oreo, Bailey's mate might surprise us with a few baby bunnies which would be a sweet thing. Life really is always changing with loss being the sad melody that plays through it, getting louder on days like today. It's up to us to sing along at times and recognize that tomorrow is and always has been, another day.