Give Thanks To The Bunny

Posted on October 3, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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Yesterday we went to Elsa’s Adult Care foster home to collect Margaret’s belongings. It was a simple box with several framed photographs, her wedding announcement, a large yellowing photo album made long ago by her daughter-in-law, and an oversized pink stuffed bunny.

When Margaret was early in her disease she volunteered at a hospital gift shop. One day she fell in love with a giant pink stuffed bunny and bought it for herself. She brought it home and for the rest of her life, as the Alzheimer’s slowly took more and more of her, she slept soundly wrapped in the embrace of the very large kindly bunny.

A few years ago, Lora did a photo essay of her mom and one of my favorite photos from the shoot was Margaret tucked into bed, ready for her nap. She is staring into the camera, secure in the embrace was her loving pink bedfellow.

Life is odd. As Lora clutched her mother’s favorite sweater and cried with Elsa, I could not help but stare at that pink stuffed bunny; I was overwhelmed with a deep sense of gratitude for it. It was as if the bunny was the guardian angel that supported Margaret through this final phase of her life. Elsa was certainly the living presence, the loving caregiver. But the bunny heard Margaret’s secrets. The bunny was with her deep into the night. She held onto that bunny like she held onto her life. She loved that bunny into tatters.

I’m certain my personification of this stuffed toy reveals more about me than it does Margaret or the bunny. I was surprised at my affection for the rabbit wedged in the box between photos in frames. I was even more surprised that it was not grief or loss evoked by the pink velveteen rabbit peaking from the box but a profound sense of appreciation that one day, many years ago, Margaret looked at the shelf and said, ‘Oh! I love that bunny.” And this amazing 75 year-old warrior-woman bought herself a stuffed animal that stood almost as tall as she did, and at the end of her day as a hospital volunteer, she carried it home. And, at the end of the day, it was a large pink stuffed bunny that carried Margaret home.