How to Grieve
Lessons from little lives
The Rabbit
Last month, my friend Jamie posted a photo of a deceased bunny on her social feeds.
Was it awful? No:
When I saw this roll across my feed, I had to stop. I was alone in my office, but I still said, out loud, feeling dismayed, “Ohhhhhh.” The rabbit looks so defenseless. The beauty of the staging, its last resting place, is arresting. It seems so useless to say that such a thing is “sad,” but I did feel sadness, looking at this picture.
The aesthetic appeal of this photo is obvious, as is the care and tenderness in it. I could picture Jamie kneeling over the rabbit, tucking blooms between its legs; choosing how to best evoke the running, jumping life it had led.
I could imagine my own fingers, brushing up against soft bunny fur. I could imagine wanting to stroke its feet; its delicate, but powerful, ears.
And, just beneath all the sentiment of tenderness, I could sense the frisson that the idea of decay always brings. The knowledge that, even as Jamie worked to honor this life, the forest floor was working; insects helping the body to…
