This has been an extraordinarily difficult weekend. On Thursday night (March 7, 2013) as we were all getting ready for bed, my daughter came to me in distress and asked for help with her pet rabbit, Thumper. He was in the corner under her bed and wouldn't come out to go to his cage for bed time. I moved the bed and found him lying unresponsive. His eyes were open and he was panting shallowly but did not move as I lifted him to the bed. We've had the rabbit for about 10 years and he was several years old when we took him home so we knew this was coming. I had hoped that he would go quietly while my daughter was at school. However, in death as in life, he commanded attention until the end. He was petted, adored and exclaimed over until he began to convulse and to scream and then my son and I just held him down while my daughter and husband left the room. Life and death are both very messy affairs.
On Saturday evening (March 9, 2013) I was downstairs doing the laundry when my daughter came down and asked me to hurry to her father. He was in tears when I got there. His sister had just discovered the body of their brother. She called 911 and then she called us. He was cold when she arrived so there was nothing she could have done. My husband and I drove to his apartment to offer moral support while the police investigator took pictures and talked to my sister-in-law and to their brother's soon-to-be-ex-wife. We were not allowed into the apartment during the investigation (thankfully) and instead stood outside and explored the should-haves that all survivors do.
As we were standing there, the neighbor who had been "helping" my brother-in-law came to talk to us. She described how she fed him, emptied his trash, got his mail and generally acted like his maid. That was strange enough, but she seemed to want our validation, or forgiveness or comfort and hugged all of us several times though we had never met her before. She offered (several times) to let us use her bathroom or get a drink or use the phone. Then she continued to talk . . . and talk . . . and talk. The picture she painted of my brother-in-law was not a flattering one but reflected more of herself than of him. Clearly, we were all too polite for our own good.
When the police were finally through and the coroner had retrieved his body, we were allowed into the apartment where we found the TV still on, a great quantity of empty liquor bottles and not much else. He'd recently moved out of the home he had shared with his wife and four children and he had accumulated very little.
