We lost our harlequin lop buck Chester on Sunday night/Monday morning. He was our first bunny together (and my first) and had the biggest character. We liked to think he was a very serious businessbunny as he would spend lots of time under our sofa in his office that we created with papers and other bits that he filed and arranged meticulously.

Chester was born in August 2014 and we got him in the November. Although he is a lop, in typical Chester fashion, he didn’t do things as they were supposed to be done, hence having one ear up and one ear down. We played with him and he got one quite well with the two dogs that I was living with at the time (though they were never left unsupervised and always under control) but we knew he needed a fellow bunny. Chester’s dreams came true in May 2015 when we brought home Penelope around the same age he was when we got him. He fell in love with her immediately and they rarely spent a moment apart. Often Chester could be found with Penelope laying on him and he never seemed to mind that much. We moved into our first flat together the next month in June and that’s where Chester really kicked on with his business empire, we gave him the space underneath a sofa and filled it with papers and things that we thought they’d enjoy chewing. Chester and Penelope spent about 18 months there until we moved to a bigger place, which meant more space for the bunnies! Both Chester and Penny seemed to enjoy their new space, inspecting as much of it as they were allowed and settling in quickly. Chester didn’t seem to spend as much time in his new office (we think his business was pretty much running itself) and spent a lot of time chilling out, an early retirement shall we say. He seemed in good health up until Sunday morning when he didn’t seem to be himself though we think he was eating and drinking. We gave him some emergency food before bed just to be sure and he seemed a little sleepy but nothing alarming but, unfortunately, when I went to check on him the following morning he had gone to sleep and didn’t wake up.

We buried Chester in the garden of his first home where he would want to be. Chester had an enormous character, he was stubborn and would love to make a game of getting him in the cage before bed. He was a hard-nosed bunny in lots of ways but he loved being groomed and also had a soft spot for strokes and being pet though he’d never admit it!

If anybody has read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy you’ll know what I mean when I use the word daemon. Chester was my daemon, he was my physical representation of my soul and I have a pain in my heart now that he is gone. I cannot put into words how much I miss him, it’s incredibly painful but I am proud of the life that we gave him and the life we are giving Penelope and our cat, Pickle. It’s so very easy to blame yourself in these situations but we mustn’t.

Chester was my first bunny and I’ll never forget him, I miss him terribly already and know that nothing will ever heal the pain I feel for him but one day I am sure I will be able to move on and remember all of the happy times without the pain.