Often when you lose a pet, or a person from your life, you're told that things will get easier, and eventually it won't be so hard to think about the loss. I so wish this were true for me.
It has gotten easier to wake up and go to work. It has gotten easier to walk past the painting that I made of his, Benner's, and Blizzard's fur patterns that hang on the wall, along with Newmy's favorite toy: a set of baby keys. It's gotten easier to see photos of him and not tear up.
But my heart still aches like it did in that moment when I knew he was dying.
And writing this post has proven to be terribly difficult.
Though I did lose a dear, dear friend that night, I gained a new one.
Bella had been attached at the hip to Newman from the day she met him. She shied away from me most of the time and didn't like to be held at all. Though I had worked with her a lot, but a lot of the time with bunnies, that's not enough. When Newman died, Bella spent a good long time trying to find him. I thought I was going to have to get another bun, something I just wasn't ready for.
Bells kept to herself the next couple of weeks, and the house was eerily quiet. Then, sometime between when Newman left us and Abbey came to live here, Bella and I became friends. She's my love, my baby girl, my little beast. She looks to me for leadership, like a dog does. She comes when I call her, she knows when I am talking to her. She likes being curled up in my hoodie, and she bows to me to let me pet her or pick her up. She has gained about 37 new nicknames, including...
Bells, Belly, Belle-Monster, BellaMonster, The Beast, and the Toe-Less Wonder [one of her toes was recently amputated due to a freak accident].
Today was the day that I realized how important Bella is to me. I brought a dog home to see how the rabbits would react, and Bella froze completely, and did not move for the four hours he was here. I had originally planned to keep him overnight, but because of my baby's reaction I didn't want to take that chance and wake up to find her dead from shock.
As much as I want a dog in my life, I am not willing to risk even the slightest chance that Bella [or anyone, obvs] would get hurt in the process. When that realization hit me, I began to think about all we had been through this past year. And then I realized, it had been a whole year that Newman had been gone.
This past November was my third Bellaversary. She is about four years old now.
