A Bunny's Tale

     It was the morning of Easter.  My sister, brother, and I woke up to an exciting adventure of hunting for eggs and baskets.  Our mom was beaming with delight as she watched us run all over the house in search for our Sunday treasure.  I was around 7 or 8 years old, old enough to know there isn't a real Easter bunny yet young enough to still enjoy the magic of it all.  Then one of my sibilings seen something move.  A loud gasp filled the air followed by a hush of silence.  My other sibiling and I turned and looked at what the gasp was about.  Then we seen it....A BUNNY!


     Being a girl from a large city this was as country as I got.  Bunnies were either found on the farm or maybe every once in a while you might see one outside but this bunny was inside and in my house!  Then we seen something else move.  We looked over.  Another bunny!  We were beside ourselves.  No longer were we in search for baskets or eggs.  We were chasing two bunnies around the house trying to catch them so we can smother it with love.  One was a pure black bunny and the other was a pure white bunny.  Nothing delighted us more that Sunday morning. 


Our Easter gift - a black and a white bunny.  The brown bunny in the picture was a ceramic bunny used to see if the bunnies would get close to it.


     A guy my mom was dating at the time thought it would be nice to suprise us with these bunnies on Easter.  He brought them over late Saturday night and left again to be back over later on Sunday afternoon. 


We had all morning to get use to the bunnies and for the bunnies to get used to us.  He brought us a cage that we hung in our garage to keep the bunnies in.  Sometimes we would reach in and grab a bunny and the bunny would hop right out of our hands.  We had to quickly make sure all the doors were closed so the bunny wouldn't escape to the outdoors.  With time and patience we were always able to capture the bunny and take it either inside or back into the cage. 

     A few weeks later my mom informed us that she was going to donate the bunnies to the Saginaw Children's Zoo for the summer.  We were so sad not having them around the house.  With me being such a young age I did not like the idea but I didn't have a say in the matter.  Our mom did say that we would go and visit them during the summer.  And we did.  We would take several trips to the zoo.  They lived in a round cement slab that was put a few feet in the ground and a cement barrier around with a grassy dome in the middle. Standing close by we could see our bunnies.  We couldn't hold them but just seeing them make us happy.  They were the only two bunnies in the bunny exhibit. 

     Summer came to a close and the bunnies were coming home.  Our mom gave us some news before we could get them.  The zoo called.  Something happened while they were at the zoo.  It is the zoo's policy to only house female animals, well for bunnies anyway.  A male bunny must of got into the cage because they both had babies.  Our mom only wanted our black and white bunnies.  The zoo insisted that since our bunnies had babies that we had to take them all home.  I don't remember how many there were but there was several new white bunnies and several new black bunnies and we even had 2 tiny brown bunnies.  My mom felt overwhelmed at what to do with all these bunnies.  As far as a child's point of view nothing could be greater.

     One day early the next spring I wanted to hold a bunny.  They were all nestled in on the far corner of the cage.  My arm's length wasn't quite yet long enough.  I pulled up a milk crate and climbed up and pulled half of myself into the cage.  The wires that was holding up the suspending cage wasn't strong enough and a few of the wires broke.  The cage was on an uncomfortable list.  We ended up setting the cage on railroad ties to make due until we could get it hanged up from the rafters again. 

     It was a warm day outside and I thought the bunnies would like to enjoy the nice sunshine.  I managed to pull the cage outside and into the grass in our backyard.  They nibbled of a few strands here and there.  It looked like they were enjoying it.  The nights were getting warmer and mom said it would be fine if they stayed outside.  A few days later the bunnies were looking sick and they started to die.  I was so saddened by this.  My mom had her friend come over to help us figure out why they are getting sick.  They refused to eat.  We even used a medicine dropper to help try to feed them.  It was a useless battle.  One by one the bunnies were dying.  It crushed me.  We figured out what caused the bunnies to die off like that.  Mom forgot that she had the grass chemically treated just shortly before I broke the cage.  The grass the bunnies were eating were filled with chemicals by Tru-Green.  I am sure without my knowning my mom's friend helped put the other bunnies out of their misery. 


Our backyard where our bunnies had sealed their fate.


     We had a small funeral and burried some just behind the garage.  I would go and pick dandelions and place it over the turned up dirt that held in our dearly loved pets.  Although they have long been decomposed by now and the people who live there now have no clue that there is a small cemetery of bunnies in the backyard the happy memory of them still lingers on.