Death and Life Everlasting

When I was seven or eight, my two brothers

and I were each given a bunny for Easter. They

were soft and white with pink twitching noses and

long floppy ears. I am sure my parents got them

for us so that we could learn how to care for living

creatures—feed them daily, handle them carefully

and keep them safe from harm. Instead of a cage

indoors, we kept them in a fifty-five gallon barrel

filled with grass in the back yard. Couldn’t have

been more than a week and we had to leave home

for a few hours to go shopping, I believe, or could

have been to visit family. It was a hot and sunny

spring day, hotter than usual in the Midwest for

that time of year. Upon our return, my brothers

and I were excited to play with our pet rabbits.

And we ran to that drum which was by that time

of day fully exposed to the baking heat of the sun.

All three bunnies had died of suffocation, and our

unwitting negligence to protect them properly.

Of course we three cried as our dad buried the

poor deceased creatures in the vacant lot behind

our house. Do pets go to heaven when they die?

I remember asking my dad. I believe they do.

We’re all creatures of God, dad tried to console

while reminding us that have a responsibility to

take better care of the defenseless. We never had

rabbits for pets again. We did, however, have box

turtles which we captured crossing our yard from

time to time. As I recall, they lived a good long

time as we kept them in the basement where

there were plenty of water bugs to eat—a safe place

like heaven, I imagined, where the sun did not shine

directly, and God for the most part, kept the concrete
floor cool and dry.

Chris Hanch 2-13-19