On Death and Bodies

Two nights ago I set an alarm to go off every three hours and dragged myself out of bed to try and force feed my tiny pet rabbit.  His name was Peter, and he had pneumonia, and not much of a chance of making it through the night.

At two I held his skinny body close to mine and knew he was worse and not better and that he was dying.  At three I heard a strange sound as I slept, like a little exhale followed by a kick against the side of the cage.  At five the alarm went off and I found him dead. 

It was still dark outside, and I knelt on my floor over his body and wondered what to do.  My response to the death of this small creature lived entirely in my body, and in his.  I was struck with two opposing impulses.  I was repelled by the rigid corpse (for that is what it was), afraid to touch it.  At the same time, I was drawn to it, wanted to attend to it, wanted to stroke his head despite my fear.  

What is it that happens, when life leaves a body?  A frail woman silently pulls down the shade in the window and the house is left empty, but heavy with the memory of life.  The body is not a shell, not deserted, not vacant, but rich and fearful, somehow.  To witness death, even this small one, is to stand at the edge of something huge and vast, and to know in our gut that we're standing there always, but rarely feel it.

Comments

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I'm sorry to hear about Peter

[Betsy Voelker]

(sorry, that was me)
xoxoxox

[Emily Scott]

Thanks Betsy darling. He was a sweet little bun!

[Shannon Holman]

You've reminded me of so much: how it was to go to my sister's house to pick out the clothes for her casket and see the outline of her body on the bed-covers she'd neglected to smooth that morning; a little rabbit I once had who'd nestle in the hollow of my neck and thump his panicky heart, until he was accidentally drowned by an eyedropper of milk; another rabbit who survived long enough to outgrow us, was released, and for years after would come back at dusk to watch us from the limn between the wild and the yard; and a poem Debbie sent me the other day, which I'll send you by email.

[Emily Scott]

Thank you Shannon. What memories.