Every now and then I am reminded of the death of my pets. Usually it is when I'm completing some nondescript task like cooking or trying to sleep or finishing my homework. And on this somewhat dull night as I try to study George Orwell's essays while our neighbours hold some annoyingly loud party in their backyard, I suddenly remembered my pet rabbit Theo.
I bought (is that the right word to use? I mean, I didn't "adopt" him from a shelter but equally he's not a new pair of nike shoes that I might "buy") Theo from a lady about an hour down south from my home. My dad and I first made a trip down to meet the lady we had found on gumtree advertising a new litter of bunnies so that I could choose the one I wanted. I remember I wanted an orange and white bunny because my last bunnies had all been some iteration of white or black or black with white spots or white with black spots. I wanted a different bunny this time. We arrived, I held some of the bunnies who were not much larger than my hand and, after sensing that one of them was a little more friendly, I marked him as my own, organised to meet the lady again in 4 weeks when my bunny would be old enough to leave his mother and back home we drove.
When we picked up my bunny 4 weeks later, he was substantially larger and munching on kale as we left the McDonald's carpark. For almost the entire car trip down the highway, he sat still in a tiny spot in his cardboard box, petrified of the movement of the car. However, as soon as my dad stopped the car so he could have a haircut, I carefully turned the box on its side so my bunny could hop out. And hop out he did. He was cute, curious and my new best friend. The first night at home, he fell asleep in my lap in the blue fluffy blanket I had bought him.
For the next few months, Theo quickly became my best friend ever - he munched kale next to me, always sat in a loaf in the corner of my bed under the ladder of the bunk, binkied around my room and flopped between my legs when he was exhausted.
I don't think I can describe how much everything inside my body wept the night Theo died. I wanted to trade everything I could to keep him with me or put him out of his pain. Whenever I think of him, I can only wonder how much everything hurt and whether he could hear me singing to him. My chest tenses and tightens whenever I think about that night.
To lose a pet is one of the most difficult experiences to go through. For I think that more than anything else, a pet is something we feel responsible for. They are entirely dependent on us. And when a pet dies, it feels like there is always something you could have, shouldhave done to save them. It could be the most irrational thing that you should have done (why didn't I come home early that day?) yet as long as there was the smallest possibility of it saving them, the guilt will never fail to suffocate you when the opportunity comes.
Yet inspite of the pain and the guilt and the sadness, grief is a funny thing. In my case, it meant that the day after Theo died when I was binge-watching TV to distract myself, I had chosen to start watching Louie. Unfortunately, while the pilot episode is absolutely brilliant, it also contains a horrifying description of a nightmare Louie has of his childhood dog rising from its grave after it was euthanised. Seemingly, this should have been hugely upsetting, perhaps even traumatising, to me given that it was the day after Theo had died. Yet, as a sat sprawled across my couch, my eyes swollen from crying, I could not help but laugh. And I kept laughing until the end of the episode for the sheer ridiculousness of my situation and for the beauty of co-incidence. Why had I, after months and months of wanting to start watching Louie, chosen to watch the pilot episode the day after my pet had died? It was one of the most horrifying yet hilarious moments of my life. Needless to say, it didn't cure me of my sadness and I was sad for another few weeks, but moments like that, moments of pure coincidence in times of absolute shittiness make things seem just a little more bearable. And if ever things seem overwhelming and completely insurmountable, I remember the time that my heart hurt like absolute fucking hell yet still, things were just a bit bearable. And sometimes, bearable is all you need.
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