Rembrandt

There is no comics content in this post. It is about my pet rabbit, who died this morning. He was 9 years old.

I hope you will forgive the indulgence, but I do not have my own blog and I wanted to write about him somewhere.

This is Rembrandt:

Rembrandt was a Dutch rabbit (hence the name). My wife and I got him a little over 9 years ago. We rescued him from a pet store where he was not being treated well. He was being kept in a tiny little cage and the employees were telling people that he was mean. We were afraid he would be kept in that tiny cage for a few more weeks, nobody would take him home, and he would be sent off to be euthenized. We couldn't let that happen so we brought him home instead. I keep remembering that today and telling myself how awesome it is that even though he had such a crummy start, he wound up with 9 years of the best life a rabbit could ever hope to have.

If you've never had a pet rabbit, you should know that rabbits -- more than any other pet I've ever seen -- give back what you give them. We always tried to pay lots of attention to Rembrandt and were rewarded with a little 3-pound bunny who acted like he thought he was a labrador retriever. He would run around the house, following us around and darting around our feet. He was playful and friendly and affectionate.

And I swear to God -- he could defy the laws of physics. It seems impossible, but I once saw him jump onto my bed by jumping straight up and then across at a right angle. I don't know how he did it, but I am prepared to sign an affidavit saying he did.

Another thing he liked to do was sit in the window sill and watch the world go by. I like to tell myself he was thinking deep thoughts about the things he could see out his window.

Rembrandt got a salad three times a day, and we always put a carrot on his salad. If you grew up watching Bugs Bunny cartoons, know this: while they don't necessarily portray the life of a rabbit accurately (I never saw Rembrandt get into an argument with a duck, for example), they are 100% accurate in their portrait of rabbits as carrot junkies. Rembrandt loved his carrots. Every time he got his salad, he would pull the carrot out, and with the carrot in his mouth, he would run around his room. We called it his victory lap.

9 years is a pretty long life for a rabbit his size, and in fact they told us last summer that he had heart problems that meant he probably only had about a year to live. So it didn't come as a complete shock when I realized this morning that it was time to say goodbye. But it still wasn't easy.

This really, really sucks. I keep getting up and going into his room and expecting him to be there. Why wouldn't he be there? It's his room. Only he's not there. And then I go and find my other rabbit and pet him and tell him how much I love him.

If you don't have pets, you probably can't understand how a person could get so emotionally attached to an animal that can't communicate intelligently. I don't understand it myself. I don't completely understand how I can be so upset over the loss of a pet. I mean, you know when you get a pet that it won't live forever. And yet. And yet I'm going through the same emotions I went through when my mom passed away.

If you do have pets, do me a favor and hug your dog or your cat or your rabbit or whatever for me.

Anyway, sorry to unload all this crap on a blog that's supposed to be about comic books. Please use the comments to talk about your own pets, or tell me how cute Rembrandt was, or whatever. I'm not sure if you guys can post pictures, but if you have pet pictures you want to post, feel free to e-mail them to me and I'll put them up.

Posted by Jason Fliegel at October 13, 2008 10:28 PM