Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Lily Passed away






Our oldest rabbit Lilly passed away yesterday. She was our last Indiana rabbit. And the only member of our family that has lived with Cari since before we got together in late 2001. Lily was dumped in a pet smart in Indiana. Cari had a call from the shelter about her, she decided to adopt her right away. When she got there she discovered that Lily had bonded at the shelter with another big white bunny named Houdini.
The plan was to foster Dini and Lily and find a home for them before we moved to San Diego. We tried but no one wanted to huge white bunnies. To bad they were adorable. So they came to California with us. In 2004 a couple of months after our wedding Dini got very ill and passed away.
Lily lived alone for four years after that, she fought with every bunny in the house, even biting the end of Luna's nose off. We never thought Lily would ever get over the loss of Houdini. Then in 2008 Cari found a little lop bunny. When he can home we expected to bound him with Yuen and Luna.
I'm not sure how Cari figured out but one day I came home and found the little guy and Lily Grooming each other. I have never seen two rabbits so in love. Lily treated the very young puppy like her little son. They snuggled together all the time.
Lily has struggled in the last year with health problems, she was super smart. When she couldn't breath she used to jump on the bed to wake Cari up, to get help. In the last month she had a infected tooth, that caused white goop to come out of her eye. In the last few weeks she was losing mobility in her legs. She was having trouble breathing. The infection was causing her pain, and would never go away until the tooth was pulled.
We were faced with the horrible choice, risky surgery that she might not survive, or her never ending pain. We tried the surgery, she came out of it fine, but a few hours latter while our friend Ron was driving her home for us, she passed away.
Our friends were there for us. Ed and Randall helped me bury her under the stars up at Mt. Tabor. Now we are worried about her little son. He is young and most of his life he has lived and loved Lilly. He is starved for attention when ever we are in the bedroom. He follows the cat around presenting his head to be groomed, but Asimov doesn't understand. I think we will have to get another rabbit from rabbit advocates as soon as possible.

2 comments:

AWC said...

:(

So sorry to hear. I have two cats and I love them a lot. I have already been thinking that it must be hard when I have to part from them.

Fran Friel said...

David - I'm so very sorry for the loss of your little friend. Bunnies are amazing. No wonder you're so in love with them.

I used to do animal therapy for the CT Humane Society and my partners were always bunnies. They had an incredible sense of being on the job and never failed to make folks feel better...including me.

I hope you find a new friend for your little lonely bunny. Your description of him presenting his head for grooming to the cat just about broke my heart.

Love to you all.

Fran