Chauncey, The Amazing Rabbit

One warm summer evening when K was a toddler, I took him for a walk—pulling him in the little red wagon around the block. Along the way, a brown dog began following us home. “Is that your dog?” the neighbors asked me. “No. Not ours,” I answered. She camped out in our front yard for two days, barking at everyone that came near. I put “Found” signs up all over town. I told my Mom about her. “She’s an angel,” Mom said matter-of-factly. I also mentioned the incident while chatting with my mother-in-law. “Oh, I’ll bet she’s an angel,” she said. And so Cinnamon (K’s name for her) came to live with us. While K napped upstairs, Cinnamon would lay in the warm sun on the wood floor in the kitchen, listening to the baby monitor. As soon as K made a peep, she’d jump up and run to the bottom of the stairs wagging her tail. When K played out in the sandbox in the backyard, she’d lay beside him protecting him from any animals or people that came within 200 yards of him. Cinnamon watched over us for 10 years.

------------
This week was a full moon week. Mom and I agreed it lived up to its legendary tales this month. “People that are ordinarily nice were mean,” she said. “And people that are ordinarily mean were downright nasty,” I added. I don’t care how healthy your self-esteem, if you meet up with enough people within a few days who feel the need to point out everything they deem wrong with you—you end up feeling like crapolla. It makes me want to go hide under the covers. When T is faced with the madness, he says: “I’m going woods-running.” Wait for me. I’ll go along. Crazy is definitely better than nasty.

These times leave me searching for answers. Okay, God. Whassup? What’s wrong with this world? What happened to nice? Have we really become so wrapped up in ourselves that we can’t even be civil to one other? Why is it that everyone is so hell-bent on being the best … to the point where we’re taking the skin off others’ backs to climb “up there?” Why can’t we just try to become the individuals you envisioned us to be when you created us? I’m losing hope again, here. Help? Those conversations are usually followed by waiting. And so it has been the last few days.
_________

This morning, I wandered downstairs to find T enjoying his coffee and looking out the window. “What color is Nick’s rabbit?” He asked me. “Huh?” I responded. He asked again. (Nick, our young neighbor, has a pet rabbit that lives in a hutch in their yard.) It seems T had seen a large, domestic gray and white rabbit “playing” in the alley across from our house. “Playing?” I asked, not sure I’d heard him correctly. “Yeah. He picked up a stick in his mouth and threw it into the air like he was playing with it,” T replied. Okay. A domesticated pet rabbit. Playing with a stick in the alley. Clearly I needed caffeine to make sense of all this. I wandered into the kitchen and picked up the phone to call Nick’s house. His Dad answered. Their brown-and-white rabbit was safe in his hutch. Hmmm.

Later in the afternoon, T was talking on the phone and looking out the front window again. He motioned for me to look outside. There, under his truck, was the rabbit … big, gray and white, clean and clearly not wild.

I went inside, grabbed some carrots. I tried to lure the rabbit toward me. It didn’t spook. It didn’t hop away. But it wasn’t interested in the carrots. I picked it up. The rabbit snuggled into my arms. I stroked its head. He closed his eyes in the warm sunshine. I talked with some of the neighbors. No one remembered any other nearby pet rabbits.

“What are you going to do with it?” T asked. “I don’t know,” I said. T and K pulled the old rabbit cage out of the garage and began cleaning it up. “We have to think of someone who will take it,” I said. “The humane society?” K asked. I pictured this gentle creature in a room with barking dogs or whiney cats. “I don’t know, but we can’t keep it,” I said as the bunny settled into his new cage. It stood regally on its hind legs looking around. That’s when I decided the rabbit was a He. “He really can’t stay,” I continued, cutting up a cardboard box safe place for him. I called my brother-in-law to try to sell him on the idea of a free pet for his kids. He laughed. I emailed a picture of Chauncey to my sister. “Chauncey?” K asked. “You named him Chauncey?” “Yes, Chauncey. I don’t know why. The name just popped into my head,” I said—as if any of this made sense.

“We just can’t afford to take on another pet. They are so much work.” I told K, driving to Walmart for a water bottle and bag of rabbit pellets. I poured the pellets into a bowl and set it into Chauncey’s cage. He came over and snuggled with me again. I put him back in the cage and walked away. I watched him from inside the house. He’d ignored the carrots. Lettuce. Even chives. But we’d hit the jackpot with the pellets. He hovered protectively over the bowl, nibbling away. For hours.

I watched him from the kitchen window as I did the dishes in the afternoon. I watched him from the upstairs hall window after making the beds. I watched him from the back porch as the sun set. T and I carried Chauncey’s cage into the garage at dark.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that we found a stray, domestic pet rabbit today?” T asked. “Yes, it is weird. His paws weren’t dirty. His fur wasn’t matted or weathered. And nobody knows where he came from.” I answered. Then we just looked at each other in silence. And smiled.

Ask the animals and they will teach you. --Job 12:7