The Rabbi and the Rabbit

Day 282

In thinking (and writing) of the MTC yesterday I neglected to mention that I left someone special behind when I left for my mission. Someone that I never saw ever again.

No, not a girlfriend or beloved family member or friend. But my own child.

Okay, not really my kid but I did raise it from when it was just a kit. Yeah, you heard me.

She didn't like being on the piano. Pressing down the keys freaked her out.

My mom was driving to work one day and saw that one of her fellow co-workers had pulled over on the side of the road. My mom stopped to see if something was wrong and found her co-worker holding this little fluff ball in her hand. It was a black baby rabbit. The lady didn't know what to do with it and my mom quickly snatched it up and brought her home.

This poor little bunny was so scared, all it did was shake. I would take her out of the box and pet her and she would just shake. After a day or so she finally got used to me. I remember I was lying down on my back watching TV with her on my chest. I grabbed the remote to flip the channel and she walked up to my neck and cuddled up. My mom had a new product at work called a Snugz (it was for your car antenna) and so we thought that would make a perfect name for this bunny.

She was all black with one paw having a small blotch of white.

Most people knew that I had a rabbit for a pet. In fact, one of my nicknames in high school was Rabbi. What most people didn't know was that my rabbit was a direct descendant of the Rabbit of Caerbannog.

Nasty, big, pointy teeth! A vicious streak a mile wide!

That rabbit's dynamite!

My rabbit didn't like anyone else but me. She would fight and claw whenever anyone else handled her. I would hold her and she would be all calm. That is until someone tried to pet her...  ...her eyes would bulge and she would bare her teeth.

Run away! She didn't like cameras either.

She even fought the vet the one time I took her in. It was kinda funny, they had me come out to the waiting room to grab me so they could cut her nails and apply medication to her foot. I held her the whole time and she didn't fight the doctor. It was like I really had my own child!

As strange as it sounds (and I admit that it sounds pretty strange) but nothing cheered me up more than my rabbit. I would come home (or wake up) and she would jump up and stick her nose out of the cage so I would pet her. I would let her out of the cage every once in awhile so she could stretch her legs and run around.

Seriously. Her name was Snugz and despite her heritage, she was a cuddly bunny. Well, she was cuddly to me. It is not my fault she hated everyone else.

Sadly my mom could not take care of her when I left for my mission and they had to find a home for her. A few months into my mission and my mom found a home with some guy named Scott. We later found out that he really couldn't take care of himself much less a rabbit. He fell into drugs and disappeared while I was still in New York. I have always wondered what happened to my rabbit and I hope she was cared for while she was alive. I would love to have another rabbit as a pet sometime.

This was the morning that I left to the MTC and the last time I saw my rabbit.

This was not the first rabbit that was a pet in our family. We had another one while in Canada but I think I will let my sister cover that one in a blog of her own.