Our beloved Lionhead bunny boy, Teddy, passed away late Tuesday night in my arms. My partner and I are wracked with grief, and also feeling full of gratitude to him for all of the time he so generously gave us. (He made it past 13 and 3/4 years old!)

When his BFF, Athena, passed away in 2018, Teddy was already 9 and we didn’t know if he would decide to stick around past those first hardest weeks. But over the four and a half years since, he opened up to us in a way he never had.  He hadn’t had much use for humans before, but now he was much more interactive and even let us pet him!  We so enjoyed getting to see his personality come out, and watch him run up to the second floor of his cardboard castle for treats every day — all the way up until just a few days before he stopped being able to hop due to advanced arthritis, around his 13th birthday. Then he amazed us once again by thriving, eating better than he had in years, and giving all the signs of a bunny enjoying his life.

Best of all, for us, he opened up even more during these last 9 months, and my partner and I both got to develop a really special bond with him. We would do “spa times” with him a couple of times a day, where we’d help him with hygiene stuff and also have massage and PT, and he was amazingly relaxed and affectionate with us. He would often groom us back during his grooming sessions! He did a lot of the bunny version of purring with us when we petted him, and in the last few weeks he’d often stretch out his face toward me for more pets, and then turn to lick my hand while I gave him shoulder massages.  It feels almost miraculous that this boy who had been quite standoffish (but still adorable!) for the first decade of his life became such a kissy, cuddly little love bun.

I feel like Teddy did so much to try to prepare us for his passing, giving us several warnings while also interspersing as much love and affection as he could in between.  His appetite started to falter now and then over the past few months, and the vet brought up the possibility that we may have to face a difficult situation when/if his discomfort from the arthritis surpassed our ability to manage it well enough.  But in between these falterings, he was full of happy affection and bunnitude.  He was eating really well again up until a couple days before he passed, and even then he was acting fine most of the time.  Less than 24 hours before he passed, just before I went to bed, I noticed his breathing looked a little different — his top lip parted more, and I worried he could be breathing partly through his mouth.  So I put my hand below his nose/mouth to feel where the air was coming from — and he leaned forward to lick my hand!!

By the next night, Teddy’s breathing trouble was getting worse, and he was starting to show greater distress, poor sweet bun.  But in a final feat of Teddy magic, he even managed to press pause on his dying process to have a peaceful, contented last grooming session with me, without breathing problems, up until just a minute before he passed. I’ll never understand how that was physically possible, but he’s always been a truly phenomenal bun.

Teddy has been at the center of our world, our daily routines, and our hearts for so many years, we’re both feeling disoriented now, and we miss him acutely.  It’s extra hard because we’re planning to move overseas and do a lot more traveling in the coming years, and we don’t know when/whether we’ll be in the right place to have bunnies again.  (My own high sensitivity makes having bunnies extra tricky as well, because I get so codependent-anxious anytime they seem even slightly off — not that I regret a single minute with my two loves!!)  So this is a real end of an era for us, and that’s very difficult.  For almost 14 years, the bunnies have been at the center of my heart, my daily routines, and my identity.  It’s so painful and confusing to try to live without them now.  Especially because of the extra close interdependence that we came to enjoy with Teddy during the last 9 months of his special needs, I can’t deprogram all of my impulses to care for him, pet him, feed him, check on him, talk to him, etc, and it hurts not having a concrete way to convey my love and caring to him now.

But at the same time, we’re in total awe of him and his incredible love and generosity with us right up to the end, and we feel incredibly lucky to have had two such wonderful bunnies in our lives. We want to continue to be a family with them forever, and need to learn how to do that in a new way now.  (If you have any tips on how to do that, I would be very grateful!)