Pirate Eyepatch died. A black and white bunny of the ordinary variety born right here on the farm born with only one eye, the other eye no fit for viewing this world, we decided to tell people that he lost an eye fighting pirates veacuse that is his legacy. But he's a she. Too.
Pirate was a willing unpaid volunteer at Stonehurst, our school up the street, for many years, hopping across many a desk, visiting years of students in kindergarten, her missing eye always morbidly fascinating and we told the kid, still a great bunny. So she's missing an eye.
Pirate was getting older. We never had a bunny actually get old just hanging around usually it's eaten by a hawk or disappears. Lately she hadn't been having nay more babies and she just seemed to be slowing down. Today I went out and Pirate was lying all stretched out like they do in the sun but she was on her side and I knew she probly had gone. In the sun dappled light in her outdoor hutch, her buddies hopping near her. She lived her whole life here, and did what we did even though she only saw half of it.
If a chicken dies I usually just put it in the trash with the manure but Pirate I found a hole under mom's porch where she liked to hop over and hang out, and I buried her then covered the top with manure. Not cause it's tradition I just had too much manure.
It's weird to throw dirt on top of a still soft body. It's like you're having to admit that there's no coming back from this.
I'm getting old too. Done with babies even though I'm never over the whole experience. My mom is close to this cloak of earth, even though I'm not ready for that emergency. I'm not able to process death maybe nobody is, that's why there's special black clothes and silent gravesites and drawn faces. It's cause we face it all no matter what we do. We ain't escaping the hole under the porch.
Pirate was a great, soft, dopey, kind rabbit. I hope she felt love and the earth and family and allllll those years of schoolkids who had a good easter because of her. Some of them had never touched a bunny before. I'm glad it got to be her.
I feel like childhood is over and I'm still just pretending it's not so I can keep going every day. Because the kids aren't in the little school anymore, and the bunnies kept me thinking maybe we're not done. It's okay Bess is 14 and in high school, Nathan still trick or treats and he's 21. Life is so complicated.
Luckily Pirate a daughter. So maybe I never have to be done.
