Clover

I would like to dedicate this post to our rabbit, Clover. She's gone.

Ashamedly but truthfully, I didn't like that bunny very much. She was cute, for sure, when she was a baby ($5 at a petting zoo. Spur of the moment) and she would snuggle into your neck. But she got older and went into heat (with rabbits, it's a permanent heat) and she went crazy with hormones and circled our feet, nipping ankles and rubbing her chin on everything. Apparently, that's "mating behavior" which means she's just goin' crazy for some love. We had discussed setting up a little lovemaking session with one of our friend's rabbits. They have two males, Dexter and Bruce, and their owner LL said that they're gay, actually. We didn't get her fixed 'cause it costs, like, 300 bucks because a rabbit qualifies as an exotic animal. Give me a break. If you've ever been to Calgary, those suckers are not rare nor are they scarcely sighted. Jeez, I saw the fattest jackrabbit in the world amiably hopping around the fricking hospital grounds. Clover lived in a cage mainly, but she would be allowed out to roam the house for certain periods of time. She would pee on everything, usually material, and also drop little turdlets that look like raisins but really aren't. We would also let her out in the backyard, where she would frisk and frolic and hide under the deck or shed for hours so we had to retrieve her in our pajamas at ten thirty in the freezing cold with flashlights. Her various cages that we tried and retried to make took up a lot of room. Clover was a pain.

But now that's she's gone, I feel a weird kind of sadness. Not devastated in the way I was when I lost my cat, Shegwa, whom I received for Christmas when I was six. Not hopeless in the way I was when I lost Lucky, Shegwa's daughter. We have bad luck in our family. It's weird how I didn't like her, because I'm an animal lover. Always. I like cats, dogs, fish, goats, horses, cows, snakes, guinea pigs, lizards, frogs, basically anything that is not a bug. Except I get creeped out by plecostomuses and weird slimy creatures that live in dark places. Or else insects. But anyway, it really makes me sad to think about Clover not being there. Because even when she was annoying, she was still a part of the family, kind of. Also, she always seemed to have kind of a personality. A fiesty one. I can't believe I won't see her again.


Because she was so sweet at times. When we first got her, a tiny, fit-in-a-palm almond-colored thing, who tucked herself into your neck or shoulder and let you hold her on her back like a baby. She had a charming, twitching little nose, and if you held her with her front paws on your shoulder you could hear her sniffing. And sometimes she would lay her soft ears against her nut-brown fur, and sometimes, when she was frisky they would stick straight up, and sometimes one would be up and one would be down, like she was contemplating something. And she was hysterical to watch in the backyard as she streaked pointlessly around the yard, and leapt and twisted in the air, and skidded across the dirt. And how she always wanted a friend, and would cuddle up with our dogs, Shanli and Beckett when they were lying down. It was funny to watch how she always annoyed our other animals. I recall one day she stuck to our cat, Mr. Puddles, tail, never leaving him alone, and he turned and swiped at her and she leapt on him and they wrestled. It ended with Puddles squirmed out from under her and ran away. He got beaten up by a rabbit! It was even kind of cute the way she would circle your feet. Mom looked it up on the Internet, and that means she possesses you or something. You're hers. Clover only really liked Mom, but she was cute.

How she vanished was we put her in the backyard, just like every afternoon. I had gone to my volleyball windup in Saskatoon, so I wasn't there. My aunt and I got home at, like, quarter to eleven, and my mother was anxious because Clover was still in the backyard. It was, of course, pitch black and icy cold, so we had to leave her out for the night. In the morning, she hadn't turned up. We figured she would have tucked herself under the deck or something at night, and in the morning heave her furry, shivering cold butt up onto the porch. But she didn't. And there are two holes in the fence that she could slip through, but never has before. But I guess we couldn't give her the benefit of the doubt. My mom was devastated. She really loved Clover, even though no one else really did.

What makes me most torn up is how she disappeared. It's not like she was a nuisance and we had to sell her to a nice home. It's not even like, if a pet gets sick or hurt and you have to put it to sleep. I hate when animals vanish, it's just so open-ended. Clover wouldn't go wild. She's too domestic. She'd probably just slip out the fence, not smart enough to realize the world doesn't really belong to her. She would hop around, and slowly would realize her mommy wouldn't rescue her. She'd creep around on frost-bitten toes, finally curling up somewhere and try in vain to stay warm. I don't know if she'd slip off to sleep and not wake up, the cold taking her away, frost beading in her fur, or if some cat/dog would get her. I don't like to think about it. It's awful.

I suppose there's a tiny sliver of a chance she'd come home. But it's been twenty-four hours. That's a long time, for a little bunny. She's gone.

And that really, really, sucks.

This is Mom and her bunny, Clover.

I feel kind of bad posting about how terrible it is that our bunny is gone when more serious things go on. My aunt, grandma, and cousin are all visiting for the weekend. My auntie Lesley lost a child in September, Kane. Fourteen month old baby. That's truly horrible. She is still dealing with it, as is my uncle Jordan and cousin Mathew.

I don't know what to hope for, with Clover, though. Do I hope for her to come home? Find somewhere warm, and scavenge for a little while? Have a quick painless death? There's nothing to do but say goodbye. Just like I had to say to Kane, too early.

Bye, Clover. We love you.