🐰💔 Goodbye, Muffy
This is a journal entry written at the time of Muffin’s passing, reproduced here as part of Undulating Husk: Memory Vessels.. It is the source material from which the work developed.
Not the post I had planned. I was supposed to update last week, but life got in the way.
Muffin, my six (maybe seven) year old lady-bun, passed away. I came out of the shower, got dressed, put the kettle on, and went into the living room to check on everyone the way I always do. I couldn’t see her, so I came further into the room and found her on the floor in front of the sofa. She used to run close to objects to navigate around the room, so I think she was trying to make her way towards the kitchen. I talked to her, asked if she was okay, waited for the usual head tilt or for her to run off to find Munch the way she always did. Nothing. She couldn’t move her head. When I picked her up her entire body was floppy. I put her on the sofa and got the blankets. I didn’t inspect her, pull her about, or look for injuries. After ten years and fourteen rabbits, you get better at reading these moments, some still catch you off guard, but not this one. Her body told me everything. This was a comfort mission, not a rescue one.
She was part of a little fluffle, but her BFF of the group was Munch, a little Netherlands dwarf. Anyone who’s had rabbits knows how deep their connections run. They grieve. They feel loss. And now, my little fluffle is one rabbit smaller.
When one of my rabbits passes, I have a process to help the others understand what’s happened. I leave their body with their bonded mates for a few hours so they can process it. I called my partner home, blubbering, singing Muffin her little songs, because that’s what you do when it’s them. You fall apart and hold your shit together at the same time, because they need you to do both. I moved her somewhere the sun was still coming through the window so her body stayed warmer for longer. I rolled a large fluffy blanket into a sausage, curved it into a circle, layered it over more bedding, and placed her inside it, a soft little donut on the floor. Then I tidied it around her, because she’d stretched out in her final moments and I needed Munch to be able to reach her face. I was presenting her to him. That’s the only way I can describe it. He was straight on her, grooming her, pressing his nose to hers, refusing to leave her side.
After about four hours, I start wrapping them in what I call ‘death blankies.’ It’s my way of giving them dignity. I wrap them tightly into a little parcel before handing them over for cremation, because I’ve seen how places handle small pets, and a plastic bag isn’t it. I start by leaving their face and front paws showing. Then, after a few more hours, I fully wrap them before finally removing them. It’s not just for me. It’s for the ones they leave behind, so they aren’t just ripped away.
But Munch took it hard. Even when it was time to take her to the crematorium, he was still sitting near her. When he wasn’t by her side, he was following us around. It’s soul-destroying watching him, worse than watching Fluff when Cotton passed, and Fluff sat on Cotton when she died. It’s going to be a tough few weeks, and if he can’t hack it, I might be facing another loss. That’s the brutal reality of bonded rabbits.
I’m still in shock. Out of all of them, she was the youngest by three or four years. But life had other plans.
This post is for Muffin. Because she mattered, and she’ll be missed. She is going home, just not in the way I ever wanted. She’ll be added to the rabbit family urn I have in storage, where six of her previous fluffle family rest.
She died once. You did the rest.
— Recorded by the one who kept waking up
