It's Hard When Children Say Goodbye to a Pet

Knowing it's something all Arkansas parents will likely face doesn't make it any easier

FRISCO, Texas – There are some days in life that are a little harder than others. 

As parents, going through tough times comes with the territory, but when it's our children who are facing a life-altering event, it's a bit harder to withstand. Last night, we lost the first pet of our children's lives. 

Sure, we've lost a few fish along the way, but we're talking a true pet. Something they cuddled, that expressed warmth and emotion as they cared for it, played with it and pressed its soft fur into their arms and against their cheeks.

Eight years ago, my son and daughter got together and made a PowerPoint presentation showing research they had put into knowing and understanding the lives of bunnies and how to care for them. It came with a plan for how they would share the responsibility, common misconceptions, and what all would be needed. 

Now, they didn't just hand us a computer to look at. They put on a full presentation that, while my 10-year-old daughter took the lead, clearly required a lot of memorization, coaching and rehearsal by my son who was on the cusp of being four. 

It wasn't the presentation that convinced us even though it was quite impressive. It was the teamwork they had shown in doing so. It's always been important to their mother and I that they do things together.

We wanted to reward their sibling efforts and I had owned Nederland dwarf bunnies in college, so I knew how good of a pet they could be. We weren't in a position to have a dog at the time and the only other animal we had in the house was a cat named Oreo who had been rescued from a shelter by my daughter. It would be nice for my son to get to experience what it's like to bring in a new addition to the family.

So, we put together a plan. My wife reached out to people in town who bred dwarf bunnies, found a little blue Nederland dwarf, and we made arrangements to put bedding and bunny food under the tree for Christmas. "Blue," as I had taken to calling our little fuzzy friend who would be coming our way as soon as he was old enough, was to arrive a few weeks after the holidays.

Unfortunately, Blue never made it to our home. He died at the breeder's before he got old enough to meet my children. So, we scrambled about trying to find a new bunny to keep our promise. 

It seemed impossible. There just weren't any within a reasonable driving distance that were old enough to bring home. Then, just as we were about to give up, my wife found out about a 1-year-old smokey gray Nederland dwarf who needed a new home. 

We arranged for my wife and daughter to have a mother-daughter day and my son and I were to have a father-son day. At the end of the mother-daughter time, they were to pick up the bunny and bring him home to my son.

My daughter cradled him in her arms the entire drive and when she arrived to introduce Grayson to her brother as the newest member of our family, it was one of those magical moments where you just knew God had orchestrated it. The right bunny had hopped his way into our lives.

And that's where the little gray fluff ball stayed until last night. I had just wrapped up quality time with my kids and they had wandered up to their respective rooms when my daughter began calling for my wife and I. 

At first I thought she was just trying to get both of us to see how well she had cleaned the turtle tank because she hid the urgency in her voice rather well, which I later ascertained was because she didn't want to alarm her brother. She has always been good at protecting him. 

However, after we didn't respond quickly enough, she threw in the word bunny. When I entered the room where she and my son stood around a constructed bunny home complete with a large front yard. I immediately caught the concern in her eyes and saw Grayson on his side having spasms from a seizure. 

She's been studying under a local vet as she prepares to go to college to learn how to save the lives of exotic animals, but it was clear this type of situation hadn't come up. I instructed her to scoop him up and hold him against her chest and comfort him as much as possible. The hope was it might stabilize him and bring him out of the seizure, but the bigger goal was for my children to have the feeling of making his final moments as peaceful as possible.

We all thought this was the end, but as my children sat on her bed taking turns holding Grayson against their hearts and stroking his soft fur, he settled down and, for a bit, drifted into an almost coma-like state while his breathing and heart rate slowed to barely noticeable. I prepared myself for the worst, but it didn't come. Somehow, they loved that bunny back to life. 

Before long, he was literally kicking and his breathing picked up. My daughter had us put his bunny bed next to her and she stuffed it with the gray blanket with colorful bunnies she brought Grayson home in all those years ago. Then she laid him in there to recover while she kept an eye on him. 

With the crisis seemingly averted, my son went to research how to follow up on older bunnies that have a seizure. He learned that if we took him to the vet the next day, if he got proper treatment, he would be OK. Apparently, bunnies can look like they're better, but without the treatment they will soon die.

So, I agreed, asked my daughter to set it up in the morning with the vet she works with and everyone went to settle down with the crisis averted. Then, roughly two hours later, I heard wailing and deep sobs. 

I dashed upstairs to find my daughter clenching her little brother in his room as tears streamed down their faces. At some point, my daughter got up from her bed to go to the bathroom. Not wanting to be alone, Grayson tried to hop out of his little bunny house and was hit with a second seizure. 

It was quick, but my daughter was left to watch the final breaths of the beloved pet she thought she had saved just a bit earlier. Knowing how big of a heart she has, I don't know how she did it, but she found the strength to gather him up in the gray blanket and place him in a wicker basket that had been formed to have bunny ears on the handle. 

Just days before, she had bought it to store all of his toys. She laid him in peacefully, gathered her strength, and went next door knowing she had to break her brother's heart. 

I went in and hugged them both. She then asked if I would wait until she ran to the store before doing anything with him. It was 12:30 in the morning. The only store open was a Kroger down the street, but against her mother's wishes, I let her go. I didn't know what she intended to do, but I knew whatever it was would be about the only thing that would help her get through the next couple of hours.

My wife moved the bunny cage out and I gathered all of the food, bedding and toys. The last thing I wanted my daughter to spend the night with was Grayson's house at the end of her bed with no Grayson and Grayson toys with no gray ball of fluff to gnaw on them. 

As I grabbed one particular bag of pellets, I flashed back to two days before. I had been downstairs working when I heard strange noises coming from upstairs. There was a rustling that made no sense. The kind of rustling usually reserved for when a rat gets into someone's home.

However, as I topped the stairs, I saw the culprit. The bag of pellets was tipped over and shaking furiously from inside. Sticking out the end was a distinctive gray bunny butt complete with button tail. Grayson had escaped his home and dove face first into his own all-you-can-eat buffet.

As I slid him out, he never stopped munching away. I laughed a bit at it all and took a moment to silently thank a fire fighter who had gone into our smoke-filled home and scooped up a terrified free roaming bunny from our living room floor and brought him out to me before the inhalation could kill him a year earlier. It was a small moment, but one I appreciated.

After a short while, my daughter returned. I had filled a shoebox with bedding and she sat on her bed with it and the contents of two grocery bags. Out of the first, she took a bunch of carrots and snipped the green tops off. She then lined the edges of the box in a glistening ring of orange. 

As her brother and I looked on, she lifted Grayson out of his wicker basket and placed him in the middle of the box. She then reached into the other bag, pulling out a bouquet of white roses. 

She carefully snipped them at the top of the stems and placed the buds around his body. Then she cut pieces of baby's breath and filled in the rest. It was both beautiful and touching. It was like the scene where Katniss takes care of Rue's body in Hunger Games, but way more real and emotional.

Finally, she said her goodbyes, as did her brother, and together they decided to wait until the next day to bury him. I too told my old friend goodbye and thanked him for being so good to my children. I let him know I would like to see him when I get to Heaven and that my two dogs from childhood, Sandy, a German shepherd of the same color as her name, and Princess, a life-filled snow white eskimo spitz, would watch over him until I get there. 

I took his box and placed it in the top of my closet for safe-keeping for the night. Then I went downstairs to watch anime with my kids to help take their minds off things. 

As sad as I am that we lost Grayson, I am glad he was their first experience with the death of something that shared their lives with on a daily basis. I am also glad they were there for each other. My daughter goes off to college in a few months, so time was short for them to be able to hold one another and share their sadness together. 

I was also grateful that it hadn't been me that was their first loss. Twice over the past few years that came very close to happening. Mere fractions of a millimeter during my battle with cancer and also a violent car crash that should have taken both me and my son. 

So, for today, as I prepare to bury Grayson in our backyard and be with my children through the loss of their lovable furry friend who hopped and kicked his way through the last eight years of their lives, I hope everyone is understanding if I take a few hours away from writing about the Razorbacks. 

Sure, there are some things to talk about, and I know how much they mean to all of our readers. However, for the next few hours, there's just something more important than men playing a kid's game, Twitter trolls and rumor mills. An important part of life is happening, and today, it's more important that I be a father than a reporter.

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