Pikachu

This is the life story of my first rabbit.

     To start with my rabbit’s death would be a complete understatement of what he meant to me while he was alive. Plus, it would make this essay very depressing. Instead I will walk you through the highlights of my rabbit’s life. The goods and the bads and…… The end.

     It got my rabbit when he was just a tiny baby. It was the first year that my family and I have been to Michigan. My mother had taken my brother and I to a small fair and I mean a small fair. It was so small that it only had a few game stands and a Ferris wheel.  One of these stands caught my eye. It was a game where all you had to do was toss a ring onto the neck of a bottle and you when either a spotted or a black baby bunny. This was about ten years ago so I was about six or seven then. Naturally, I wanted a rabbit.

     I begged my mother to let me play, but I failed at each attempt. Distraught, I watched as other kids tried to play and win a rabbit of their own. Off in the corner, my mother was talking to one of the men who ran the stand. After a few minutes, he came up to me and said that I should try again. I tried, I failed. But instead of saying, “Better luck next time.” He said, “Congratulations! Go and pick out a rabbit!” I was so happy as I eagerly went to go pick out a bunny. Of course, I could only choose one and it was either going to be spotted or black. I knew that black was too dull a color so I definitely did not want that. One rabbit caught my eye. It was spotted and had a large black stripe going down it’s back. I wanted that one. That is how my rabbit, Pikachu, came into my life.

     During the first couple of week that we had him, Pikachu (or Pik, as we called him) stayed inside our house. My mother was the one who would clean his cage every day. While she was doing that, my brother and I would do something quite different. Pik was a grand member of our super hero squad. Pik, the Super Bunny was, of course, played by Pik. Dr. Carrots, Pik’s arch nemesis. And I was the DID (Damsel in Distress) that Pik would save from Dr. Carrots. Every time Pik would save me, he would get a kiss and a treat in his food that night. Later in the year, though, we moved.

     As months went by,  Pik grew bigger and bigger. My grandfather had made him a wonderful rabbit hutch out of wood. Since our backyard was fenced in, I was able to let him out to run around the yard. There are three things that I remember about my time with my rabbit. One time, I had gotten a pretty blue harness and a leash to match. It fit Pik like glove. So every now and then, I would have Pik hopping around the backyard with his harness and leash (though he never went anywhere that I wanted to go).

     Another time, my older sister had brought her dog, Bones, over for a visit. With nothing much to do, we went outside and brought Pik out to play with him. Bones and Pik got along really well together, though they never became true friends. During that time, I had really gotten into digging for fossils and treasure, so my sister, my brother, and I got a shovel and started to dig a hole in the backyard. Eventually, Bones came to join us and not long after that, Pik joined us as well. So there we were, three siblings, a dog, and a rabbit all gathered around digging for treasure.

     My final memory of him in that particular house was when my mother had decided to babysit my grandparent’s dog, Oddis. One fine summer day, I had my rabbit out to play with. I was keeping a close eye on him since our cats were sitting there watching him intently. The next thing I knew, my mother let Oddis out to use the bathroom. At first, U thought that he would be like Bones and be gentle with my rabbit. I was dead wrong. Oddis charged right at Pik and my poor rabbit took off at the dead run. They ran in circles around the yard, until the strangest thing happened. My rabbit started to scream. My brother and I were running around the yard trying to catch either animal. When he started to scream, we both stopped dead in our tracks. My mother comes out and demands if I was screaming. She then watched Oddis and Pik zip past her. She grew hysterical and shouted to us to catch Pik.

     After a few more minutes of chase, Pik sat huddled in a corner. I snatched him up and yelled for my brother to get the dog. That was the end of free-ranging for my rabbit. More months went by and with no more incidents. When my mother met her boyfriend, Craig, we packed up and moved down to Troy. When we got there, Craig assured me that his son would take over the care of Pik. I was thrilled; this would give me more time to spend exploring. Later in the year, I had started fourth grade at Hill Elementary and came home every Friday night with a thick packet of home work that I would spend hours to try and understand. I didn’t realize what was going on with my rabbit until I happened to be outside stroking him one day. I could tell that he was very skinny, though I couldn’t see his bones yet. I expressed my concerns to my mother and she said that Craig’s son wasn’t feeding him or watering him like he was supposed to. She told me that she would take care of it.

     There was a time where I had thought that Pik was just another object in the way. I had asked my mother to get rid of him for me. I asked to take him to a farm so that he could be happy. She said that we’d think about it later. I’m glad I didn’t get rid of him though, that would’ve been the biggest mistake of my life.

     A couple of months later, we moved into our house on Timberlane. By then, Pik had grown into a very old age. Not only could I have not played with him, but I had also lost interest in him. He spent the waning years of his life in a rabbit hutch being fed and watered every day. I was only able to take him out a few more times after that. Towards the last two or three years of his life, I would always feed him, pet him, and give him a kiss. On his final day of life, I opened his cage door to feed him, but he didn’t come to greet me like he usually does. When I looked towards the back of his cage I saw him lying there with his ears down and his breathing shallow. As if by some unexplained instinct, I knew he was dying. I knew that he’d be dead by tomorrow. So, I fed him and gave him a pet and a kiss and whispered, “Good bye.” And I left him. I did the stupidest thing by leaving him to die on his own. But it seemed like the way he’d want to go. I knew that my mother would try to save him, thinking he was sick. But I knew. I knew that it would do no good. But still, I felt so bad the next day for leaving him to die alone. Pik was nine years old when he died. He had outlived the normal lifespan of a rabbit. You know, he never did get sick either. Most of our rabbits had gotten sick and died, but not Pik. Pik went on his own terms.

     Even after his death, it took a few weeks before we were finally able to get him to rest in peace. Do you know what its like to see your dead rabbit twice? Well, a few days after we buried him, something got into our backyard and dug him out. The animal didn’t eat him, it just dug in up and drug him out. My mother told me to bury the bricks and the rocks that we had originally put on top of him with him. She asked if she wanted help, but I told her that I had to do it myself. He was my rabbit and I wanted to be the only one to touch his body. I put him back in the hole we had dug and pushed the rocks on top of him. I then drugged two boards and placed him over the turned up dirt. After that, I filled a bucket full of large rocks and literally dragged that over and stacked them on top. I stacked rocks until there was a decent little mound over his grace spot, that way, he would never be disturbed again.