My fairies are moving out, sadly, and they bestowed upon the boy a gift this weekend past, a goodbye present: an impossibly soft, kitten-sized black bunny named Jack, who loved to be held and played with. So enraptured with Jack was my son that they became inseparable. If Jack was not clutched in a loving deathgrip by the boy, he was snuggled up in a ball against the boy's chest while he watched cartoons or hopping happily around at the boy's feet or on the boy's bed while the boy slept, quietly munching lettuce and leaving chocolate M&M's to show his appreciation and devotion.
After a day or so, the boy seemed to understand the need to be gentle and delicate when handling the bunny, and I no longer had to remind him, "Take it easy!" and "Use both hands!"
This morning, he asked if he could bring Jack in the car with us while we ran errands. Sure, why not? In the post office, people said, "Aww..." and paused to pet the bunny. At Lowe's I glanced over to see Jack hopping along obediently at his feet while he danced around in the aisle. In the car, he rode like a little fluffy black lapdog, perfectly content.
I sat at my desk working this afternoon, and the boy came running in, crying. At seven, he does not cry lightly but only when something is dreadfully, seriously in a bad bad way, like when he has to get a shot at the doctor's office or when the sleep-over he and his friend have been planning for days gets canceled because his friend got grounded for telling his mom to shut up.
"Mom! Something happened to Jack!"
I looked up in time to see his horrified expression. "What? What happened?"
"Jack's dead!" he cried, dumping for dramatic effect onto my lap the still-warm carcass of Jack the bunny, now indeed, unquestionably deceased.
Oh my.
Have you ever been deeply engrossed in your work one minute, only to find yourself staring at a dead animal on your lap the next and faced with the task of comforting a near-hysterical seven-year-old whose understanding of death comes from Star Wars movies and Super Mario?
"I tried to heal him," the boy said, looking at me with wide, scared eyes, clearly hoping that I could do something, that I could "heal him."
I was unsure whether to join the boy in woeful tears of loss, or launch into a philosophical discussion of the absurdity of life and the certainty of death, or perhaps lecture the boy ("See! This is what happens when you don't take care of your things!")
But, of course, what I wanted more than anything was the power to resurrect poor Jack and bring him back for my son, who had done nothing but eat-sleep-poop-walk-play-dance-talk-laugh-and-sing black bunny for the past three days.
Turns out, he dropped him. He was holding him "with both hands, Mom, I promise, I really swear!" and Jack started squirming, clawed the boy and escaped his grip, only to fall to his doom. A broken neck, I suppose, is the official cause of death.
Being faced unexpectedly with comforting the grieving boy, I was also suddenly aware that I needed to figure out what to do with poor Jack's remains. Must I really perform a proper burial, a bunny funeral, right now in the middle of a busy afternoon? Or can I simply dispose of poor
Jack as efficiently as possible, say a few kind words of farewell as I wrap him in newspaper and dump him in a trashbag at the curb? It was clear as I sat there blinking at the dead bunny, I needed to decide quickly.
Now, hours later, the boy is still mourning. "I lost my best friend," he said to me with eyes most solemn and forlorn just a few moments ago. "I miss Jack."
Our Taco puppy appears to be taking Jack's passing better than we; he wants to play. And after a heavy sigh, the boy shuffles off with his dog to find the stuffed dolphin they like to play fetch with.
