Peter the Peaceful

 

Today I decided to give away Peter's house and hutch and made plans to visit a friend of mine. The day I got Peter I hauled him into her office to show him off. Poor Peter. I still remember him sitting on the counter not knowing what to do with himself. He was so much smaller then. She understood my excitement as she had a feisty boy bunny named Burt. At the time we thought Bella [Peter's name before his sex change] was a girl, so during our next visit she gave me one of Burt's toys to share with Bella. It was a little stuffed bunny.

"Bella will love the smell of it."

"Bella" mutilated it and soon after I discovered Peter was a boy. It all made sense.

My friend also grew up on a farm and is the head of 4-H for our county. She knows animals and she'd know who would need a free rabbit house or hutch. As luck or coincidence would have it, I saw her today walking into the post office so I parked and went in. I asked if she knew anyone who would have need of a house or hutch. She looked at me sympathetically and asked if Peter had passed. Burt had passed a few years ago, but I didn't find out for months. She couldn't bring herself to tell anyone and refused to talk about him until many months later.

I explained it was much worse than that. He disappeared. I had no idea what happened, but I only imagined the worse. My friend said that happens. It happened to her cat. I asked if her cat had disappeared without a trace. No, she heard the dogs kill her cat. I told her I was sorry. She thought for a minute.

"But wasn't Peter quite old?"

"Yes, he was eight. I expected I'd go out one day soon and find him lying still under a bush."

"That is very old for a rabbit. And he was outside in the yard for a number of years. Did he ever have a problem before now."

"No."

"And you haven't seen predators lurking about because you know if they found food once, they will come back to check for more."

"No. Nothing."

She explained, "It doesn't sound like anything killed him or he would have put up a fight. You would have found fur all over the yard. Animals prepare for death and are very crafty about hiding their remains."

"But everyday for nearly two weeks I walked around the yard checking. The garden shed is the most practical hiding place. I should have smelled something if he was under the shed."

"Oh, no, you wouldn't have. Old animals about to die den up. They do whatever possible so predators will not find their remains especially in the wild. They will often dig or bury themselves. You usually won't smell them nor find them." She told me of rebuilding a porch at her old family home and discovering the bones of a cat. She didn't know which one as so many of them in old age just disappeared. My old childhood cat disappeared on our farm, too, and I remember an adult saying animals like to die in private.

I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. Then I burst into tears the first time in weeks. In between sobs I said, "Thank you! I am so relieved to know he IS under the garden shed and died in peace like he should have."

R.I.P. Peter Rabbit