11:04 p.m.

i’m sitting here in my pjs after another long day in another long week in another long month in this crazybusy year.

my eyelids are heavy but i’m fighting to keep them open as it’s the first chance i’ve had to check my e-mail and google reader today.

knock knock.

hmmm. that’s odd. although it’s probably the best time to catch me home, not too many of my friends drop by after 11 p.m.

it’s the grandaughter of our neighbor across the street, cecily. we’ve known her since she’s was little, but she’s all grown up and married now.

“we were out for a walk and somebody hit your cat.”

“which one?” (zack will be devastated over any of them, but my first concern is for mowgli, who has a piece of my heart and a big chunk of last month’s paycheck.)

“the yellow one.”

i sigh. “tigger.”

suze and tigger summer 2009

i send shane out to look because i know i just can’t bear to watch if tigger is suffering. then i remember to ask

“is he dead?”

cecily nods her head sadly.

as i bury the tears of my youngest in my chest cecily explains,

“the same thing happened to my cat when i was 12.”

i stroke my youngest’s back and nod my head.

i am sad at tigger’s brutally abrupt end and guilty that the last time i saw him i tossed him out of the house (they really do land on all fours) three times in a row after he kept sneaking in. i wonder how zack and suze will take the news–it’s too soon. i feel a twinge of guilt over the twinge of relief i feel knowing that’s one less cat to feed, neuter, immunize.

“he had a good life here,” i search for some scrap of comfort to share with k~ “he got to go and do whatever he wanted.”

we go in the house and while i wait for shane to return i ponder over which flower bed will make the best gravesite for this one.

i hear the door open and some scuffling, but there are no words and no shane. i wait and wonder and then look up as shane walks up the stairs with a very lively cat in his arms.

tigger!

i scratch his belly and apologize out loud for not being entirely patient with his antics of the other day, at the same time hefting again the weight of the responsibility we’ve inherited along with these cats.

apparently it was someone else’s yellow cat who met his demise tonight. (may it rest in peace.)

shane sends tigger back outside to work on–i’m not sure, do you count up from 1 or down from 9?–well, the next one.

So most of you are too young to even know what I meant by that. Except I didn’t really mean that anyway. I just really wanted to be able to write that.

I found our pet rabbit, Cookie (short for Cookie Dough, because as a baby she looked just like Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream), dead this morning and it broke my heart.

We bought her on a whim just over five years ago. I’d run out to Vineyard Garden Center for some mulch. I must have gone in the back way, because it was only as I was leaving with my purchase in hand that I noticed the bunny cage. Bunnies for sale, $3, the sign read. I’d always wanted a lop-eared bunny and these were too cute to resist. Cookie was the runt of the litter and had been chewed up a bit by her siblings. But she thrived on all the attention and extra calories we tried to give her.

As far as pets go she’s probably one of the best we’ve ever had. Sweet disposition, warm and cuddly and a kick to watch when she hopped around the yard and garden. We’d often talked about breeding her because she was so good with the kids. (The ad I wrote in my head and intended to put up at the local IFA went something like this: SWR–single white rabbit–seeks one-night stand with friendly and fertile male.)

We all loved Cookie, but my daugher L~ loved her the most. In that sweet and serendipitous way in which sometimes something good will happen just before you’re about to get your heart broken, L~ had spent most of Friday afternoon playing with Cookie out under the crabapple tree.

Goldfish and betas aside, I’m pretty much a puddle over the passing of pets. (I bawled for an entire day over the death of our pet rat Tillie.) You learn to love what you care for and of course as mom I get to help take care of a lot of pets. But losing this one was especially hard. The worst part was watching my daughter. It’s hard to just sit back and watch your kid’s heart get broken. Wracked with sobs, she removed Cookie from her box in her cage and held her close for most of the morning. It was almost more than I could bear.

Just as I was wondering how to balance L~’s need to grieve with the rest of the family’s need to watch General Conference without a dead rabbit in the room, L~ got up to look for a box and went out to dig a hole. It just seemed to be understood that she would do it, and do it herself. Wracked with sobs myself, I watched from my bedroom window as L~ dug through the rain-laden soil, measured the hole then dug again and again until she got it right. I didn’t worry that the location she chose was in the middle of my flower bed, but instead resolved to take L~ shopping next spring for just the right perennial to plant over Cookie’s grave.

With the same stubborn independence I’ve noticed in other members of my family, L~ refused to be comforted or consoled. But I was worried for her. Then I remembered my part-time neighbor Jan had just arrived in town yesterday. Jan and L~ share the same birthday and have forged a special friendship. And Jan’s pets are family to her, so I knew she would understand. I casually mentioned Jan’s return to L~ and watched hopefully as she bounded out the door to go see her. Sure enough, Jan let her talk about it and then put her to work on a project that would serve both to distract her and help her work out her grief.

So although I am sad today, I’m also grateful. Grateful for tender mercies–that L~ will have the fresh memory of Friday to soothe her sadness a bit. Grateful for good neighbors who have compassionate hearts and are willing to be there for my kids at times when, for whatever the reason, they need to deal with things in their own way. And grateful for the inspiration that helps me see that without being hurt by it and also lets me know exactly what I need to do to help them find what they need.

During conference this afternoon I picked up a piece of appliqué I need to complete for a block-of-the-month out at Amercian Quilting. It’s a chocolate brown bunny. Although the pattern calls for the ears to be straight-up, I’m going to make them lop back. In memory of Cookie.