Ballad of the Fallen Angels

Long before I could drive, long before I flirted with getting a hearse, before I settled into who I am today, Butterscotch, a Holland Lop, had been part of our family. She had a spirit tough as nails. She'd stared down her share of vacuum cleaners and housekeepers. I would catch her on autumn days, staring out the sliding door out across the deck, and into the woods that border our backyard. In spirit, she was there with the rabbits that lived and died with that freedom and danger. Today, that spirit is free.

We found out in November 2003 that she was ill, and the amount of time she had was limited. As time went on, her condition worsened, but she always had that spirit. You could never quite unnerve her.

Today I came home, and she couldn't stand up. I saw pockets of air drifting aimlessly around her stomach, distorting the skin above in the most unnatural way. I'd always rejected that it was her time, and she lived on, touch and go. Today we both knew it was her time.

As I sat stroking her fallen head with those unique ears I miss, my mother, her mother, came home.

Momack: You don't have to stay here and see this.
Chack: I think after all the shit I've done to her over the years...
Momack: No, you've been good to her.
Chack: And she was the best of them. I'm here to the end.

Nothing was as cold as that room.

With heavy hearts, Icarus became her burial ship, and I a benevolent Charon. Ridgewood Avenue became her river Styx, and she rode home with us in silence, one final time. And so she awaits her final resting place among the grasses that her distant relatives call home, and live a life she never knew. But perhaps, she will.

May 2001 - August 18, 2004