A Woman and a Rabbit

A Woman and a Rabbit

Daniel G. Snethen

Hase was a rabbit. A white rabbit. A very old white rabbit. He hopped about my classroom chewing gum off the bottom of tables and desks. Eating paint from the wall. Jumped up onto a desk and then a table and ate the bottom edges of old schoolhouse maps which had been repurposed as window blinds. All of my students loved Hase, except for one young lady, who for some odd reason had a phobia of hares. And Hase must have known this, for whenever she was in class he would always hop to her desk, as though he had some strange rabbit crush on her…and she hated it…feared it…so much so, that whenever her class was in session, I’d have to banish poor Hase to the wire cage like some hardened criminal.

My mother loved animals, all animals, especially rabbits. When she lived in the country, Mom had all kinds of animals. Sheep, goats, cows (even a miniature one which she trained to pull a cart), horses, ponies, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, turtles and rabbits. But she did not like snakes, which I took great pleasure in catching and showing her. She disliked bumble bees and would scream a blood- curdling cry at them to scare them off while she was working in her garden…apparently it worked as I do not recall her ever being stung by one. But what Mom hated most, and was very frightened of, were spiders. She claimed she could smell a spider, even before she saw one. When she was a little girl, her mother kept a spider in a jar and would chase her around the kitchen table with it. Apparently, Grandmother got a great chuckle from this. But it is evident to me now, that this caused life-long trauma for my mother. I regret the few occasions I brought a spider home for mom to see. I was young and did not really understand that irrational fear and trauma is not something one has any control over. Forgive me, Mama.

I was a rascal, a rapscallion. Mother came to expect anything from me. She once told me that nothing I did ever surprised her. She simply came to expect the unexpected. Even when I told her I went swinging naked from the tire swing while courting Anne, she laughed and said, “I’m not surprised.” Mom claimed that I had multiple personalities, at least six or seven of them and when I scoffed at the notion, she immediately replied, “That’s another one.”

Mom spent hundreds, no thousands, no tens of thousands of hours laboring in the hot SD sun. She wore layers of clothing and a pink pith safari helmet to try and stop the damaging rays of the sun, but in the end, all of those long hours exposed to solar radiation took its toll upon her aged soul and she contracted skin cancer. Horrible sores and tumors arose on her skin. Her bedding and mattress soaked in blood and other bodily secretions which oozed from her compromised integumentary system.

She lived alone then, several hours away from me and the farm. Her final dog had died of diabetes, she buried Tisha in her back lawn. Snooky the cat of 17 maybe 18 finally succumbed of old age and joined Tisha. Even the painted turtle I’d given her was no longer. Mother was old and lonely and in pain and the doctor wanted to put her on chemo-therapy, but Mom said, “That poison is worse than the cancer. I just want to live as pain-free as I can and die when it is time.” And though some protested, I agreed with her.

Her health declined rapidly, as did her weight…and my rabbit, Hase, was getting thin too. It became apparent to Mom that she could no longer live the solitary life she’d gotten used to. We brought her home in her frail condition. I was working out a plan to move her in with me but she was placed into a care facility and needed to rest and recover before any such plans could be realized.

I visited her. I read the fairy tale The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig to her, changing the ending and she exclaimed in a weakened gravely voice, “That’s not what happened.” And I laughed, knowing that Mama wasn’t a bit surprised by my antics. I helped her to the restroom, so that she could pee through her catheter. It embarrassed her so, but I just reminded her of the many times she did similar things for me as a baby and a child and reassured her that I loved her. I fed her and she vomited on me and again she seemed chagrined but I laughed and said it was payback for the many times I’d puked upon her, all the while my twin sister was gagging in the background. Apparently, Dawn had a great disdain for vomit or being vomited upon. That was the last time I saw my mother alive.

I went to my classroom only to find my dear Hase dead in his cage. Some say a student had kicked him hard a few days before. I don’t know, I hope not. Why are some people so cruel? I choose to believe otherwise. I choose to believe that God was in control the entire time. Mother died that same day. The day my rabbit died. I had a carrot box in my room and I put Hase in it. I transported Hase back to the farm. The neighbor had opened a grave, the first and only one on Hill Top Cemetery. Mom and I had already discussed this, and that is where she wanted to be buried. On the grassy hill at the northern edge of the horse pasture where she used to lay and rest and watch her sheep as they grazed. She thought this would be a peaceful place, her favorite place for an eternal rest. And, I made it happen. No one believed it could be done, not in such short order, but it was done and my mother was laid to rest there but not before, under the cloak of darkness, when no one could see, I took a ladder and a carrot box, with my rabbit, and buried Hase in the center of her grave. And I’m pretty certain my mother was pleasantly surprised.