(Hendrik's words in orange.)
Almost two weeks ago we lost our bunnies. While we were sleeping one night, our neighbours' dogs managed to tear apart the metal fencing we had around them for their safety. Both rabbits were lost. The smaller of the two, Henry, was definitely a goner. We knew that as soon as we saw the white fur all over the place. We weren't so sure about our big grey bunny Digger though. There was only a tiny bit of grey fur in the enclosure, and that could have been from him shedding. We searching for him and called for him but finding a bunny in the forest is much like finding a needle in a haystack. (We later found out that Digger lived a few days in the wild before the dog found him again. Our neighbour found him about a week after the initial incident and said that he didn't think he had been dead for very long.)
Dwayne and I were both pretty upset over the whole issue and Dwayne felt bad because he had built the pen and felt that somehow it was partially his fault. If you saw the dog, you would know that not much but a steel wall would keep this dog from something she really wants. Very friendly but very, very strong - and huge!
We had to tell Hendrik that the bunnies were missing. We told him that the bunnies had escaped and that they were lost. "The bunnies got out. I'm going out to look for them." It became evident that we were going to have to tell him much more as he told us he was going to go into the woods and find them. He told us he was going to go into the woods and down the road and look for them. "I am going to walk to town and see some bunnies on the road." (There are bunnies who live along the highway just as you get into town.) The last thing we wanted was him getting lost or struck by a vehicle, so we told him that the bunnies were dead and that they weren't coming back. He seemed to understand this fairly well. (We had a funeral for our family dog last summer and he remembered that.) We picked a whole bunch of colourful pansies and put them in the bunny pen. "This would be a nice place for a picnic Mommy," he told me.
Later that day, he still wanted to find the bunnies and wanted to know where they were. We told him they were in bunny heaven. "Let's get in the van and drive to bunny heaven." We tried to explain that you can't drive to bunny heaven, that bunny heaven was up in the sky somewhere. We told him that just like we can't go and see Grandpa Raymer in heaven yet, we can't go to see the bunnies either. "I want to go to heaven. I want to see Grandpa Raymer." We talked about how we will see Grandpa Raymer again someday but that it wasn't time for us to go to heaven just yet.
Here are a few things Hendrik said to us that day:
"We can't drive to bunny heaven. It's up in the air. I want to go in an airplane and look up there. The stars are in the air. "
"I will fly up in the airplane and I will see. I will look and see if I can see Digger and Henry. I will go up in the airplane. The airplane is at the airport right now."
"Gae-goo."
~ Riley, upon receiving a cracker.
"Daddy, it's a problem. Can I please have some chips?"
~ Hendrik (We're not sure what the "problem" was but the chips apparently were the solution!)
Assorted gurgles and coos and baby laughs.
~ Abby, the ever happy baby!
What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.
~Pearl Bailey
