Gregory bunny, bunny of our heart, stopped running May 5th; but he’d been fading for a couple months. I’ve been too sick and sad to post before; I’ve even found it impossible to send an email to almost anyone who cared for him or who cares for me, just to let them know.

I’ve tried to write this post several times and I can’t. I can’t talk to other people about him; I miss him too much. So I will pretend to be able to have one last little talk with him:

My Gregory, we discovered you in an evil pet store where we went to get the gear to adopt another rabbit. You were unfixed because the dunderheads in said store insisted, scoffingly, that one doesn’t spay or neuter rabbits (because apparently they’d never heard that fine colloquialism “breed like rabbits”). Your head had recently been gnawed on by a territorial guinea pig when we took you home, but that didn’t stop you from trying to make sweet unspeakable love to our cat, Columbo (until you’d been fixed, of course).

You were destined to lose your first bunny love, Penny, after only two years together. You never loved me or my husband very much, so we knew you weren’t well when you showed us any affection. Six years ago, you fell in a calmer and more mature love with Sophie bunny, and together you tore our house apart in a way that made me happier than I can say. You ate and ran and did everything with gusto until almost the very end: my little thorny darling, I’ll never get over you.