Bringing Bee home Part 1

The title has two meanings. One, the story of how Bee came into our lives in the first place and two, where he rests now.

Let's talk about number two first. We brought him home in a porcelain jar last week, a week after his death and could think of no other place to put him, than in the room where he spent his last days. He is now sitting on a shelf in the room, where Sara still is. We've decided to keep Sara and to love her as much as we can, instead of giving her away. That kind of decision is not easy to make even as the pain of Bee's death weighs upon us... But Sara is not a toy, she cannot simply be given away just because we are devastated about Bee. When i walk to the room, it just doesn't seem the same. I still call his name, but see no hyper bunny come hopping towards me, an earnest look in his eye. Getting over his death is going to be difficult, even though we kept him for only 3 years.

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Rewind 3 years to 2004. I was still a student in NIE, on practicum at Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Primary School. Practicum was a stressful time because we had to be evaluated on our delivery of lessons and even the lesson plans that we crafted. Though we had reduced number of periods, it was still challenging as we had to eat humble pie and acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses. One day, after coming down from class, I noticed a box near my colleague's table. When i looked into it, there sat a small brown rabbit! Rabbits, in case you guys don't know, are my passion. Seeing them just makes my day! This rabbit was small, had his paws spread open. This open splay would be one of the things we remember about Bee. We would call him 'samseng' because it was as if he sat with his legs wide spread. Anyway, he seemed lonely and i started patting him. I soon found out that his owner had left the country and put him with a pet shop. My colleague happened to pass by and thought of adopting him as a school rabbit. So began Bee's journey in KCPPS.

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The rest of his journey will be continued later. As you can read, he eventually ended up in our house. How he did that, well you will read in parts 2 or 3. Meantime, let's hope Bee is happy on the Rainbow Bridge. They say that the rainbow bridge houses all the rabbits who have left this world and up there, they are happily playing with an abundance of carrots and grass. I imagine him up there, and it brings me comfort.