Last week, Hepcat woke Smartmom at midnight.

“Opal’s dead,” he said, his voice thick with incredulity and pain. We weren’t expecting it. “You never expect these kind of things,” he said.

Opal Abu Opalina was a beautiful white rabbit with random black spots. Smartmom and Teen Spirit bought her four years ago at Petland Discount on Fifth Avenue near 12th Street. They were in search of a guinea pig to replace Serena, Teen Spirit’s beloved pet, who died under mysterious circumstances while the family was vacationing in Cape Cod.
In the back of the pet shop, Teen Spirit became enamored of a dwarf rabbit, so before she knew it, Smartmom was flipping her MasterCard and purchasing a rabbit, a cage, rabbit bedding, food, rabbit vitamins…

Once home, Smartmom did an Internet search on “rabbits as children’s pets” and found this rather disconcerting information on rabbits.org:

“Many people are surprised and disappointed to find that rabbits rarely conform to the cute-n-cuddly stereotype in children’s stories. Baby bunnies (and many young adult rabbits) are too busy dashing madly about, squeezing behind furniture, and chewing baseboards and rugs to be held.”

It was too late. Teen Spirit named her Opal and the Oh So Feisty One added Abu and Opalina. Within an hour, Opal was an established member of their household.

But rabbit.org proved to be an oracle. Opal was cute, certainly, but not cuddly. In the first year, she was an anxious rabbit capable of scratching those who were foolish enough to try to hold her.

Eventually, she settled down. A bit. By day, she was Zen-like, calmly sitting in her cage, or drinking from her water bottle. But at night, she’d run from one end of her cage to the other — punctuated by an occasional flip. In the city that never sleeps, Opal didn’t either.
And then she was gone. In the hours after Opal’s death, Hepcat and Smartmom lay in bed talking. “Do you think she was happy?” Smartmom asked Hepcat.

“Well, it’s not like she wrote a blog or anything. But I think she was happy,” he said.

Smartmom told him how sad and scared she felt. Hepcat sighed a lot.

“Growing up on a farm you’re probably used to this kind of thing,” Smartmom said.

“You never get used to this kind of thing,” he replied. But he did fall asleep fairly quickly.

Smartmom lay awake wondering how to tell Teen Spirit and OSFO. She knew “closure” was important when a pet dies and that
something like this could unleash an onslaught of questions about mortality and the fragility of life.

When Smartmom told Teen Spirit about Opal’s death the next morning, he pulled the quilt over his head and refused to come out, saying, “I don’t want to go to school. I want to stay home and sleep and be sad.”

When The Oh So Feisty One heard the news, she marched right into the living room “Why are her eyes open?” she asked. Smartmom was amazed how fearlessly she stared into the dead rabbit’s cage.

“She’s in a better place now,” she said.

Later she made a makeshift memorial and placed a sprig of lilac next to the cage. “Do you think we took good enough care of her?” she asked.

In the meantime, Teen Spirit was distant and blue. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. And when Beautiful Smile (the babysitterandsomuchmore) called to console him, he refused to speak.

Teen Spirit and Hepcat both withdraw when they are feeling emotional. Conversely, OSFO, like Smartmom, tends to express what she is feeling — even when she doesn’t know exactly it is that she feels.

When he got home from the Edgy Startup, Hepcat and OSFO took Opal down to the backyard (more like an alleyway, a place they rarely go). “We buried her with her food and her alfalfa bedding,” OSFO told Smartmom. “She should be very comfortable down there.”

Probably the person most affected by Opal’s death was Hepcat, who enjoyed her companionship late at night when he was working at his computer in the living room. She’d jump up like a puppy when he entered the room and thrust her snout toward him for petting. Days after her death, Smartmom noticed a far away look in his eyes from time to time. While he didn’t say a thing, she knew he was thinking about Opal.

Then she remembered what he said the night she died. “You never get used to this kind of thing.” You never really do.

©2006 Community Newspaper Group