Yippie!

  ah, September.....the air seems to clean up, the sunlight takes on a different sparkle and thankfully, the temperatures drop to a more tolerable level.....especially in the mornings. This subtle shift is not lost on the bunnies and they respond in kind with noticeable excitement when I let them run around the pool deck.
    I was watching them this morning and came up with a definition of "binky":

BINKY: when a rabbit says, "sometimes it feels so good to be a rabbit that I can hardly contain myself...so I don't"

 makes me want to join them.....

 


  

Long Live the Queen

Long Live the Queen

so....I'm finally gettin' around to telling the story....
   Miss Bean (a.k.a. Queen) has gone across the Rainbow Bridge. I knew her breathing was not normal, but had chalked it up to mostly her allergies. Dr. Norma had listened to her during an exam and said that she wasn't hearing any congestion in either her lungs or head. She said the next step was taking films, but let's just try the allergy meds first and see if she responded to them.
    They seemed to help...or was it just wishful thinking? I went back and forth between thinking she was getting better and then worrying that she wasn't.
     The time for my husband and I to go on vacation was approaching fast....and I was taking both Queen & Willis over to my friend Kym's house. What a blessing it is to have a friend who will take your bunnies for ya while you're out of town, not to mention that they will be treated as well as I would treat them at home. Plus, Kym has rabbits of her own and is very knowledgable on "all things bunny" (when I told Dr. Norma that Miss Bean would be staying with Kym, she said, "oh, that's very good....she's in great hands!)
       I was still not happy about Miss Bean's breathing though.....and had planned on getting Kym's opinion on it when I dropped her and Willis off the morning before we flew out. If Kym didn't like what she saw either, I had planned to take Miss Bean in to see Dr. Norma.
     I think I already knew that Kym's take on Bean's breathing would be the same as mine....and she just happened to be taking her bunny, Chief, in for a check-up that morning. I called the vet's office and they said, sure bring them both in at the same time. I still had tons of packing to do so Kym offered to take Bean with her.
      I stopped by my mom's house to visit her before leaving town and when I got home there was a message from Dr. Norma....."please call me if you haven't left town yet...we need to discuss our findings from Miss Bean's exam".....
   The alarms were going off in my head....that doesn't sound good!.....
     I called Dr. Norma and when she got on the phone with me she said, "I'm so sorry sweetie, but I don't think Miss Bean will be here when you get back. We took films of her and there is almost no normal lung tissue showing and the cancer looks to be in her abdomen as well. We could try experimental drugs on her...but I think the thing to do is just let her be and finish her days in peace". We both concured that she wouldn't survive surgery.
     I hung up and began to sob, to grieve for my sweet girl. I cried out to God and said, "I don't know how to do this!" When I regained enough composure, I called Kym to see what we should do. I couldn't very well leave now....no way!....
    Kym had not gotten home yet so I left her a message to call me. I should tell you here that Kym loves Miss Bean like one of her own.....she is the one who took Miss Bean for me last year when we left town, telling me 'you almost didn't get her back!' when I went to pick her up and bring her back home.
      Maybe 30 minutes later the phone rang....it was Kym, crying and saying 'I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry'.....and I'm crying too, saying 'I know, I am too!'.....she's almost screaming now through the tears, saying, "no, Ellen, she's GONE!"
     .....wow.......gone......
    She told me that she'd gotten back from the vet's office and brought Miss Bean in the house so she could get the hook the cage door.....she set Miss Bean down and when she came back in the room that Miss Bean had gone into cardiac arrest. and poof....just like that....Miss Bean hopped across the Rainbow Bridge.....
    Kym brought her over to my house and sat with me a while. We both kept just stroking her beautiful fur and kissing her head. Kym had seen the xrays, and oh my gosh, Bean was just full of cancer. Then she quietly said, "she can see again", as Miss Bean was totally blind due to neglect in one of her former homes....it seems she lived a life of mostly neglect before  I was blessed with her presence.
     Dr. Norma had told Kym that she doubted Miss Bean would last the week.....but like Sipsey, the maid in Fried Green Tomatos, said, when Ruth Jamison died, "a lady always knows when it's time to leave!"
     So I got to hold her, love on her and tell her goodbye before we put her to rest in one of her favorite spots in the back yard. It was just at dusk, when the nature of bunnies makes them want to come out to romp and nibble plants before going to bed for the night. Sweet Queen, my darlin' Bean Bunny.....
         I would not have left the same time as my husband on our vacation....I would have waited till Bean had gone first.....but a way was made for me. When I cried out to God earlier, "I don't know how to do this!"....how to let her go, how to say goodbye....it's almost like He answered back to me, "This is how you're going to do it....leave it in My Hands".
      I'm on the North Shore of Oahu now. It's a healing place, a spiritual place. When I walk the beach in the mornings I say out loud, "Run, Bean run!" and I imagine her running freely, nose no longer to the ground to make up for sightless eyes. Run, Sweet Girl....I love you.....

A Relevation

so I was saying goodnight to my bunnies this evening......and I was telling my blind bunny, Miss Bean, that I loved her and that "she didn't even know how much I loved her" when it occurred to me that God is the same way. We're like a blind rabbit....at the mercy of our caretaker...not sure whether to trust the kindness or not, and never really grasping the total love and commitment of this "entity" that claims to have only our best interest in mind for us.
     "You don't even know how much I love you", whispers our God to us, as He holds us close.

Life With A Rabbit: http://www.songramp.com/mod/mps/index.php?MySongs=...

Life With A Rabbit: http://www.songramp.com/mod/mps/index.php?MySongs=...: "http://www.songramp.com/mod/mps/index.php?MySongs=Yes RE: my song, 'The Rabbit Blues' Well, I had made the mistake of plugging the ..."

http://www.songramp.com/mod/mps/index.php?MySongs=Yes 


RE: my song, "The Rabbit Blues" 





Well, I had made the mistake of plugging the hole "unner tha fence" (yes, there really was a hole dug there! the rest is fictional) with a clay flower pot....

...so I'm out in the back yard checking on Miss Bean the bunny and look over, only to see the flower pot pushed out of the hole. I peek through the fence slats and there she is...my totally blind rabbit (seriously folks!) in the neighbor's back yard! Fortunately, she was contained in a small area 'cause of a shed and a squatty little palm tree.

So I run in the house and grab a handful of Craisins (she can't resist 'em!) and commence to waving one in front of her nose throught the hole under the fence. She takes the bait....I offer another one, this time pulling it ever so slowly back through the hole...I see her nose beginning to poke through...I think, "ah, I've got her now!"....nope....she ain't falling for that one.

I ended up having to jump on my bike with her carrier and pedal over to the next street so I could access the neighbor's yard....squeezing my way past that durn squatty palm, sweating like a moose let loose in Miami....finally capturing my errant bunny...

Then I had to haul *ss home and get ready for work!

There's a cinder block stuck in that hole now.

Please allow me to introduce myself

Hi Y'all

I'm a singer/songwriter who had the great fortune to end up with a rabbit. Never had one before...prolly won't be without one hereafter.

I've written several songs about her...some are truth and some are partially true.

Here's the most recent:
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=9285133

Listen if ya wanna