Pen’s Story
“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
– The Little Prince
***
Pen’s story begins in the spring of 2017. After about four years of dating and a few months of living together, Breanna started dropping “subtle” hints of wanting to get a pet bunny. To be sure, I was not initially invested in the idea – I had known a few people in college with bunnies and their enthusiasm around them struck me as strange. It seemed like a peculiar animal to live with when there were so many other pets you could bring into your home. But as with most things, the path to persuasion is laid through persistence and Bre eventually convinced me there are worst things than having a small ball of fur running though the house. We spent many weeks looking for just the right bunny – going back and forth on gender and color (lilac grey being the only one we could agree on), looking at pictures of the parents for an indication of favorable head structure, floppy ears, &c. Eventually, we found a picture from a breeder up in New York state and knew this was the one we had been looking for. This is the day Pen came into our lives.
On 15 July 2017, Breanna and I made the ten hour trip to go meet Pen and bring him home. While Bre spent most of the drive concerned whether Pen would like us, I worried more about the commitment this change represented. Bunnies are not short time pets – neutered and well cared for, they live in excess of ten years and this commitment to both Pen and Bre was a scary one for me. A calculated and accepted commitment, but a scary one all the same. Although I was still somewhat indifferent towards having a bunny, it was enough for me to know it would bring Bre joy. This indifference quickly faded, however, and was replaced with adoration when seeing Pen for the first time in person.
The few weeks between committing to the breeder and meeting Pen were spent preparing for his arrival. Only the best for this bunny. An enclosure the size of a small mansion. Felt blankets on top of foam pads on top of carpet to ensure the floor would be comfortable for his feet. Fluffy beds, toys and a hand-made house for him to hide in. In hindsight, we might as well have bought a red carpet. It was temporary, of course, as Pen would be a “free-roam” bunny and have the run of the house as he aged, but Bre and I took a bit of pride in what we built for him. As we brought Pen home and opened his carrier for the first time, he wasn’t too sure about this strange new place …
… but he quickly warmed up and made himself right at home.
The astute observer might question why “Penelope” is written prominently across the top of Pen’s hidey-hut after I’ve been referring to him as a “he.” Well … as it so happens … sexing baby bunnies is difficult. Indeed, so difficult that the breeder, ourselves and even his first vet all believe he was a “she.” To what must have been Pen’s chagrin, he spent the first six months of his life as Penelope and it wasn’t until Bre came rushing into the room, shoving his furry, little butt in my face demanding, “What are these?!” that we realized our mistake. We had a pretty good laugh about it, but loved him all the same and were grateful Penelope could be so easily shortened to a gender-ambiguous name. I can only wonder what he would have said to us every time we brought home another pink or purple accessory for him, but perhaps we just weren’t listening well enough. As I think back on it now, this is probably how Pen must have felt every time we put that ridiculous, girly bow on him:
We soon realized Pen just brought us too much happiness not to share his personality with others. His intellect as he quickly picked up on litter training and the tricks he was taught. His persistence as he would so consistently find Bre’s discarded McDonald’s sweet tea cups and pull them from the trash. His intuition in knowing when to cause trouble for laughs and when to offer little kisses during stressful times. Everything he did was adorable: the way he ate, the way he slept, the way he would clean his fur … and he was a ticking time bomb of energy sitting still until – seemingly out of nowhere – he would jump a foot into the air and run around in circles. Breanna started an Instagram (which is where the name “The Lilac Lop” came from – I’m not so clever) and we found others enjoyed his antics just as much as we did. The combination of Pen’s cuteness and Bre’s dedication to his page resulted in over 7,000 followers at the height of it – which, frankly, was mind-boggling to me. This introduced us to an incredible community of people, many with bunnies of their own and some not so lucky, but all very supportive of one another.
In January 2018, being the ever diligent animal caretaker she is, Breanna noticed Pen was beginning to show the starting stages of Malocclusion – a serious, but not entirely uncommon condition in small bunnies. In simplest terms, it’s a misalignment of teeth; an overbite or an underbite. Although not life-threatening in most other animals, bunnies teeth are rootless and grow continuously through their lives. In healthy rabbits, natural wear occurs while they eat and the top and bottom teeth rub against each other. If misaligned in cases of Malocclusion however, these teeth don’t wear and can grow so long as to cause significant pain and even the inability to eat. Fortunately, Pen’s case was recognized early enough that these problems had not yet manifested, but action needed to be taken to ensure it remained this way. Our primary vet provided two options: bring Pen in every month to have his teeth trimmed under anesthesia (which was strongly recommended against because of the stress it causes) or have the incisors and two molars extracted.
Although not disagreeing with our vet’s recommendation, an extraction struck me as a rather serious procedure and one I wasn’t comfortable committing to without additional information. In an effort to ensure the correct course of action for Pen, we started seeking out additional opinions. Money was no object and we spent thousands of dollars towards the wellbeing of Pen – everything from pain killers to little bunny x-rays. Multiple visits later with different vets – including a consult with Estella Boehmer, a veterinarian in Germany who literally wrote the book on rabbit dentistry – the resounding position was an extraction was the best way forward.
Over this time, I became exceedingly attached to Pen. His fight became my fight and a significant portion of my life became entangled in his. There’s an incomparable feeling of responsibility when you realize the weight of your decisions for those under your ward. For reasons likely related to his Malocclusion, he refused to eat his hay which is dangerous for bunnies and can become deadly in a matter of days if not hours. No amount of coaxing or variations in hay, everything from Orchard Grass to Timothy Hay to special-order, vacuumed Alfalfa, would convincing him to eat sufficient quantities. As a result, every evening was spent with Pen in our laps hand-feeding him cuts of his favorite greens and vegetables to ensure he would eat. I do sometimes wonder if he became so stubborn just because he enjoyed the attention but regardless, it was enough to solidify the sense of obligation I felt to Pen.
On 12 April 2018, Pen was finally scheduled for his extractions. Breanna and I brought him to the vet, an action which seemed so common as to be routine at this point, said our goodbyes and headed off to work. Around noon, I received a phone call and answered without so much as a second thought. Assuming it was just notice Pen was out of surgery, these hopes quickly faded when I was greeted with, “Well … I’ve been better” when I asked how the caller was doing. The vet explained Pen had a negative reaction to the anesthesia and went into cardiac arrest before any surgery could begin. They were able to bring him back only to have him slip into cardiac arrest a second time. Eventually, Pen’s heart started beating on its own again, but the two and a half hours of resuscitation were not without their toll and Pen remained unconscious. I called Bre and asked her to meet me at home where I explained what happened. We started driving to the vet office, but with no more than a mile remaining, they called to tell us Pen’s heart had stopped beating a third time and didn’t come back. This was the moment – it seemed to me – the world stopped.
***
I’ll quote Breanna and the post she made on Pen’s Instagram:
“We buried Pen in the side garden underneath the magnolia tree. It’s fitting since this was the spot he was always running to – it was like his little game. Get away from mom and dad and run to the magnolia tree. He loved causing trouble and we miss him making us laugh while he did it. The bleeding heart bloomed yesterday, it’s funny how life works, because it feels like it represents our sweet boy’s passing. So that’s the spot we laid Pen to rest at. It’s so hard not having him here with us; we loved him so so much. We would like to thank everyone that has shared in our grief. We are touched at how many of you have said such sweet things about Pen. We will try to personally thank everyone in the next few days – right now we’re just grieving our baby. But we see your comments and support and want you all to know that we appreciate it so much.”
The outreach from the community and others was immense, with hundreds of comments and a fair share of condolence cards, but the pain was significant. Both Breanna and I struggled greatly with his loss – especially as neither of us had really considered the possibility we would lose Pen that day. For both of us, we had been consumed in Pen’s fight for so long that there was no other possibility than him recovering and spending many more years with us. As we tried to cope with the situation, it quickly became clear we weren’t the only ones grieving. The day after we buried Pen, Bre looked outside to find Bowie standing over Pen’s resting spot – seemingly wondering why his brother was gone. Likewise, a few days later, I found Bow in Pen’s room … eyes fixed where Pen would meet him in the morning. He didn’t even look towards me as I approached him, but instead spent most of the evening lying in that room.
For a number of reasons, but no small part because of our failure to find unity through tragedy, Breanna and Bowie moved out three weeks later. It seems we had spent so much energy and emotional investment in Pen that there was nothing left to keep us together. Perhaps, at the heart of it, Pen was what did keep us together. And so just like that … over the course of a few weeks … the three most important creatures in my life were gone.
***
I don’t want to spend too much time talking about how I felt or the things that followed after losing Pen, but I don’t believe I can truly explain the impact he had without providing some visibility into his epilogue.
A bit of context: during this time, the house was torn apart after a water line broke in the upstairs bathroom on Christmas morning. The $30,000 worth of repairs eventually began but came to a sudden stop halfway through when the contracting company declared bankruptcy – taking the insurance money with them. I have never managed loss well, particularly with pets or people, but this series of financial and emotional events greatly compounded the difficulty of finding my way back to peace. In many ways, the loss of Pen became synonymous with the loss of Bowie and Breanna and with that was the heavy weight of failure. Although I recognized, to some degree, much of these events were out of my hands and fell not entirely on my shoulders, I felt an incredible amount of guilt over my inability to keep my family together. I questioned what kind of a man fails to provide a stable home and protection to the most important things in his life and many nights were filled with the shameful thoughts of things I could not save. For so long, I found purpose in the life I was building and I struggled to find direction after losing such a sizable part of it. I did my best to find purpose in hobbies and other activities, even building what sanctuary I could around Pen’s garden, but I found it all futile in my attempt to fill the cavity left in my heart.
A year later, I wish I could say I’ve regained that sense of direction and come to accept how everything played out, but there would be no truth in that statement. I’ve opened the door to Pen’s room which remained closed for months, but am unable to spend much time in there without tears. The blooming of the magnolia trees, which was once a welcome indication of the coming of spring, now reminds me of that warm, breezy night I spent digging Pen’s final home beneath them. There are still mornings I’m not fully awake that I cautiously get out of bed less Pen be underfoot and boxes of his uneaten hay still sit undisturbed as I’ve been unable to bring myself to throw it out. There has been progress towards healing, but it’s been a slow, slow road.
There are times I become frustrated at my inability to put it all behind me and move forward, but it seems my heart just isn’t ready to let go yet. I know that time, counseling and personal acceptance will get me there eventually, but emotions have such an unmatched ability to cloud logic. There was pride in knowing I was fortunate enough to hold that which was so important and precious – and I’m scared to relinquish my heart’s grip on those memories. I’m scared to concede there are things in this world over which I can exercise no control. But mostly … I’m scared to acknowledge the product of events is not always the result of what you put in and that, sometimes, no amount of love, commitment or trial leads you to the ending you want.
I know there are greater tragedies in this world and not everyone will understand this pain or how one could become so wrapped up over this little bunny, but I hope I’ve been able to share a small glimpse into the world he shaped and the impact he created. To Breanna and me, he wasn’t just a cute ball of fur but rather, without even trying, he became our cautious symbol of optimism – a beacon for a future filled not with black and white, but a beautiful shade of lilac grey.
***
If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read Pen’s story. I truly wish there was a happier ending to write, but it seems not everything works that way. There’s beauty and happiness in this world, purpose and drive – and there will come a day where that light shines through again. In this I have faith, but until then … I guess I just miss my little buddy and pray he knows how hard we tried.