When I was growing up the only pet that I can recall having was a small painted turtle, I named Pete. Pete lived on a little plastic island with the fake palm tree and never caused any trouble. He didn’t shed and he never chewed the table legs. He came to live with us shortly before preschool “Pet Day.”
Shortly after Dwight and I married, we adopted a pet rabbit named Thumper. A sweet little bunny, he/she (?) lived nicely in a little rabbit cage outside our window. Our landlord’s son loved to bring Thumper carrots and give us his best advice on raising bunnies.
Over the years, we brought three different kittens into our home. Sophie, Chloe, and Smokie. I wasn’t very good at kitties. Kittens are adorable, fluffy, cuddly; all things good. But kittens become cats, and therein lay my struggle. When Sophie gained enough strength to pounce onto my kitchen counters, my love for her waned. We moved her on to a loving home. When Chloe began meowing loudly at the back door early every morning, after I had been up caring for a baby all night long, my love for her faded. We found her a loving home. When Smokie began leaving her claw marks in my new wood mouldings, my love for her ebbed. We moved her out to the garage. When she climbed into the suburban Christmas morning and ate the ham buns we were taking to lunch that day, I struggled to find any redeeming qualities in Smokie at all.
Scooby was our first dog. He loved running so much more than he loved us. He was instrumental in helping us meet many of our neighbors. Summer, winter, spring, and fall; any time of the day, neighbors from near and far would drive up and bring Scooby home. Folks would call from up and down Obrien and Sunset Hills to let us know that Scooby had dropped by and needed to be picked up. They always shared their advice for keeping our little beagle home with us.
Olivia surprised Ellynne on her 18th birthday. A little black yorkie-poo, she has moved nicely into our hearts. When I slip under the covers after work at 1am and find the little fur ball snoring under the quilt, I think about Pete the turtle on his little plastic island and shake my head.
There’s a missing chapter in this pet chronicle. It took place just last summer. A friend was giving away baby bunnies. In my idealistic little brain, a bunny seemed like the perfect addition to our little “farm house.” Dwight, being much more practical than I, was not nearly as excited about our new pet. He usually doesn’t mind new pets, so his resistance puzzled me.
The morning our little bunny arrived, he reluctantly found our “rabbit cage”, but refused to let the little guy hang out in the garage. “He’ll stink up the whole garage.” So we rigged a roof over the bunny house and set him out in the warm spring air. I polled the kids about names and we decided to call him Benjamin. Such a quaint name for our new house guest; perfect, I thought. We picked up a bail of hay, a water bottle, and a bag of pellets. Life with Benjamin began.
At some point along the way, Benjamin stopped being called Benjamin. Sam decided to call him Scott. He doesn’t know any Scotts, I have no idea what put the idea into his head, if I tried to correct him, he just ignored me. It was a battle not worth fighting. Scott it was.
Sam loved to hold Scott. Occasionally he forgot to latch the cage after holding him and we all had fun playing, “Chase the Bunny Around the Vast Open Spaces of the Yard.” One afternoon, Sam confided in Ellynne. “I think Scott would look really nice if he were blue.” True love if ever there was.
As spring turned to summer, I was hospitalized for back surgery and Sam went to stay with Uncle Jon and Aunt Mieke. One morning, while he was gone, we noticed that Scott was ill. Walking around the house in a drug induced stupor,the idea of sick bunny distressed me greatly. I begged Dwight to take Scott to the vet. My husband was trying very hard to work, keep house, and manage all of my post op needs. Nursing Scott back to health and paying his medical bills, was not high on his list of priorities. He patiently tucked me back in bed, made my mother promise not to let me talk her into taking Scott to the vet, and left for work. He needn’t have worried. Once re medicated, any attempts to rid the world of injustice, fell by the way. Scott was moved to a shady spot under the deck, where he lived out the rest of his life in peaceful solitude.
After losing Scott, it became extremely important to me to put away all things bunny. I didn’t want Sam to come home and fall apart. He came home the following Sunday. On the way, the older kids asked him distracting questions about fishing and boating with his cousins, anything but rabbits. They tried to shield the suburban windows as they drove past Scott’s place next to the garage. It was then that Kate blurted out, “So Sam, did you miss Scott?’ Everyone else’s eyes bulged in horror. Yes, Sam admitted he had missed Scott, craning his neck to see the bunny cage. “Scott’s dead, Sam,” Kate finished. “I didn’t even know he was sick,” was all Sam offered as he raced into the house to see Olivia.
I’d rest easy, confident that the little guy was psychologically unharmed, but for the fact that I heard him telling two of Ellynne’s friends just recently that Scott had been struck by lightening. Denial?!
