Bye Bye Button Rabbit :(

Button a photo by Merrily Me on Flickr.

At lunch time today Fran came in to say that Button, our 8 year old rabbit, was shaking and not looking right. She had been hopping about just fine yesterday, though I thought she looked a bit lethargic and slow but she was still happy to chase Biscuit about and eat a carrot. I must admit when I took this photo I had a bit of a premonition of ‘must take some photos while we still have her’ sort but it never occurred to me she was so close to the end.

But Fran was right today; she looked as if she had had a stroke and when I finally managed to get her to respond, she could only use one side of her body to try to move and fitted again, circling in a panicky way before collapsing again.

None of us could quite bear to watch her struggle and it was beyond either Max or I to watch something else small and loved struggle and fit and then die over hours, so we took her to be put down. She’s been very loved and Maddy’s special rabbit and all the girls are very sad. It’s almost a year to the day since Button’s mate Smartie died and Maddy has worried constantly about Button since then.

We’ll miss her; it seems silly to grieve for a rabbit when we’ve been through so much worse this year but when Smartie died I panicked that it was a practise for the baby dying and I was right. I don’t want this to be a warm up again. And even more, I’m so very tired of the relentless loss and grief my children are experiencing. I so much want them to just have unequivocal joy.

Bye bye Button. We did love you.