To Tiger

My little man, my best friend, my love,

I can’t believe that I’m writing this to you and that you’re gone so soon.  The thought of living in this apartment, that I designed for you, without the tapping of your little paws is incomprehensible.  Everything here is for you, from the absurdly high bed that you can’t pee on, to the sofa I hate that you can’t get underneath, to the curtains that I guard behind fencing because you put Cookie Monster-like holes in the bottom when I let you just hang out chewing things all day.  Everything is for you.  We moved here as a team.

I got you because I decided to take my class to the park one day to look for native plants, and Ella tripped over a stupidly low fence and we had to wait for paramedics.  Making small talk, one of the girls told me that she rented rabbits for the summer, which a quick Google confirmed was not only a possibility but common.  

Life was not going great for me at that time, as it seldom is, and I thought the idea of playing with a baby rabbit for a month before giving it back was the perfect solution.  Bunbun had died probably already ten years earlier, but I still cried about her, I thought no one could replace her, and so I thought I could have all the benefits of a rabbit without getting attached.

I texted a breeder whose website I found and it was a confusing conversation, marked by broken Swedish, where I didn’t understand if I had a choice of rabbits, and she sent me a baby picture of you.  I wouldn’t have chosen a lop, or a male, or one with wild-type fur, but you were gorgeous.  So on May 22nd I travelled to Vendelsö and picked you up at the door in a borrowed carrier, and took you by public transportation back to my apartment in Zinkensdamm.

I remember staring at you through the carrier at the bus stop in Vendelsö.  I remember two other people waiting at the same stop, strangely and infuriatingly not moved by your beauty.  I remember taking you to see the park next to home on a bright and sunny day. You were strangely calm or maybe in shock, while one of the neighbourhood cats wandered up to take a look.

I put you in the kitchen to begin with, with the top of an Ikea desk as a barrier to the hallway.  After probably petting you for the entire day, I left this strangely calm rabbit overnight in the kitchen to wake up the next day to an unholy mess and cecotropes everywhere.  I can only assume that the stress of the trip, being separated from your mom, and being put alone in a room overnight caused you to poop yourself but you quickly settled in.

I don’t remember that much about the first month that marks it as different from the rest of your early life, but I know that I spent a lot of time cuddling you, which you loved and continued to love throughout your short life.  You figured out the litter box well enough, but never perfectly… Pet owners can be a bit blind to their pets’ shortcomings when they are in love, and I probably should have trained you better on the litter box front, but I can tell you that looking back, I still don’t care.  You were perfect.

I have the texts I sent the breeder at the end of that month, when she told me I would have to decide if I was keeping you longer.  I am waffling about what to do with you while I’m on vacation, telling her and myself that I can’t handle the responsibility, and then asking questions about whether you’ll have a good home and what will happen to you if no one adopts you.  Eventually she tells me that it is clear that you belong to me and I relent.  I pay her a sum that is crazy for anyone but you, and you are mine.

I don’t remember the transition from tiny rabbit to young man.  I can see from photos that you were once a tiny version of yourself.  I do remember when you became big enough to jump on the bed, a massive success, until you also hit around six months old and started marking territory abruptly one night while I slept.  I remember being half awake and smelling rabbit urine and thinking “hmm, weird”.  It turns out I was not only soaked in it, but you had apparently kept going back to your water dish for refills and peed on me many times in one night.  I sent an email to the vet to schedule your castration that day.

One of my more negligent moments as a pet owner was the night I didn’t realise you followed me into the hallway while I was doing laundry, and then didn’t check to see where you were before going to sleep.  I thought you were under the bed, because at that point you loved a run under that massive bed.  The next morning I awoke to numerous texts and phone calls from my landlord asking me if I knew anything about a rabbit, because you had been found in the hallway, were currently eating lettuce with the upstairs neighbour, and had peed and pooped up to the top floor and down to the basement trying to find home.  Not a great moment but we both recovered.

I never bothered to ask my landlady for permission to have you, mostly because I never meant to keep you, but also because I knew I was moving out in October and I got you in May.  That summer was not a travelling summer because of covid, and I think Cecilia helped me out in the fall when I went to Dubai for a week, but otherwise our summer was full of adventures with me riding my Brompton with you in the backpack (a deranged and maybe negligent move looking back), taking you to various parks and cafes on your leash.  You met so many people.  There was one time I didn’t realise children were feeding you cold discarding french fries.  Honestly, I am not sure if I was a great mommy to you but I really enjoyed those days in parks and cafes, with restaurants making you little salads.  You even used to go to the pub with me sometimes.  You were such a good little bunny.  So brave and adventurous and charming.

Come November it was time to move, briefly, to a cabin I found in Vastra Skogan because our new apartment wasn’t ready yet and my first lease was fixed to two years.  After I moved all of my furniture out and was sleeping on a folding mattress in the corner of an empty room, you came over to me and flopped against me.  

I look upon our weird little three months in that cabin as when we probably became truly bonded.  How could you not bond in 15m2?  You still didn’t live in an enclosure, which was good because there was no space for one.  I remember taking you for your castration and being told you shouldn’t run around too much, and thinking no problem, he has nowhere to go and nowhere to jump to.  It was so cosy living there with you, sharing a double bed (that I later had to buy a wet vac to clean of your urine, thank you), with you flopped next to me, or sitting watching TV at my feet, or sleeping in your litter box, or stretching out under the bed.  We could just go down the hill so you could eat crunchy fall leaves in the grass.  One time people mistook you for a wild rabbit and were stunned I could get that close to you, missing the fact that you were on a leash.  You loved to explore the strangely gigantic balcony… I was always afraid a fox would come out from underneath and snatch you up.

The day you got your testicles lopped off you sat in the middle of the floor, stoned off your ass, staring into space.  It never resolved your marking issues.  You peed on everything, all the time.  It is amazing how nose-blind love can make you.  

I ended up coating that mattress with a plastic tarp and putting a bottom sheet over it.  You still managed to pee down the side.  I think I did laundry daily.  I sweated insanely and the bed made plastic bag sounds.  There was always some sort of little accident, which I honestly believe to be intentional.  I think you were trying to tell me the bed was yours.  I’m sorry – there was nowhere else for me to go but the floor.

That Christmas was the Christmas I went to Italy.  Alex took care of you at his place.  You helped him pick up girls.  

January 15th, 2012 I got the keys to our apartment.  I picked you up from Alex’s with your exercise pen and god knows what else and brought you here.  And we both walked into our first new home together.  

Those first few days were me constructing Ikea furniture while you got trapped in the bathroom, which was to be your bathroom for the first year or so.  In the evenings of those early days you came out to explore the debris safely while I lay on mattresses on the floor.  

Back in the cabin, there were nights when the TV was off, all else was silent, and I would hear a strange squeaking.  Every time I would make a move to record the sound or locate the source, it would stop.  This went on for months.  I posted it on forums, crawled underneath to look for mating hedgehogs - nothing was found.  Then in the early days of unpacking the new apartment, I heard the same sound.  My reflex thought was that I had gone insane and the sound was in my head.  It turns out it was you, drinking.  You squeaked when you drank out of a bowl.  And, curious and easily startled, you would stop when I moved.  You made so many noises for an animal with no vocal chords.  

Eventually, our apartment was decorated and mostly functional, and as we lived here I made various tweaks to prevent you from trashing the place, like repeatedly sewing patches and eventually a border on the bottom of my eaten curtains, putting fencing in front of them, covering various wires with plastic (and more plastic, and more plastic), storing shoes way off the ground, and tying up the washing machine cord and pushing it against the wall after you severed the power cord and invalidated the warranty.  You also ate the seal on the washing machine itself, and the seal on my shower door.  You sure did love to eat rubber.  What were once destroyed ballet flats are now my proudest pair – customised by Tiger.

You used to be a free-roaming rabbit and I am sorry that eventually that had to stop.  Your toilet used to be in the bathroom next to mine, but then you ate the shower doors, and when you ate the curtains the combination of cost and danger to your health meant a large enclosure which didn’t seem to bother you unless I was home and throwing my freedom in your face.

The fact that I let you pee all over a puppy blanket on my sofa, hopeful that you would finally stop, is insane to me now.  It is gross looking back.  I will forever miss, though, how I used to wake up to you perched on the back of the sofa, eye to eye with me, watching me sleep, and then when I showed signs of movement, you ran to the fridge.  You had me trained well.

You also peed against the wall a few times, from the top of the sofa, resulting in me putting a puppy pad on the sofa itself.  Again, I cannot believe I put up with this as long as I did.  If I pull out the sofa, even though I scrubbed it and repainted it several times, I am fairly sure I can still see the outline of your neon orange pee.  Well done.

The insufficiency of your toilet training aside, you were a good rabbit.  You were the best rabbit.  I don’t care what you did.  I am happy you left traces.

I gave you about 90 pillows and 20 water bowls and infinite hay feeders before I came up with the configuration we have now.  I still swept and vacuumed many times a day.  You ate my dustpans.  You hated the broom.  You growled at it.  It was hard to take you seriously because you were so cute, but boy did you hate that broom.  

When you shed, you shed in a way I have never seen rabbits shed.  When you were very young I was startled one day to notice you had eyebrows.  You would shed in lines and crop circles.  You did not enjoy brushing, and I am so sorry for the times I hurt you.  I didn’t want you to swallow your own fur.  You had enough problems.

The first time you needed the vet, I think it was because you had skin issues.  Then weight loss became the issue.  We never seemed to be able to figure out why you kept losing weight. You would go through bouts of antibiotics and pain killers and regain, but then lose weight again. Your trips to the vet became constant.  It wasn’t until Anna suggested that you have a CT scan that we got the answer of what was making you sick, and what I believe is what killed you – your poor little ears.  The ear infection in your left ear, my right, took your hearing.  You were still able to hear with the left and were still an expert in knowing when the fridge was being opened.  You had a LECA but the ear infections continued.  One morning not so long ago I woke up and your face was uneven, your beautiful face half-paralysed by the e.coli infection that no antibiotic and months of ear flushing couldn’t cure.  I pray you did not live your life in pain.  I tried so hard.  I am so sorry.  

You loved to be outside so much.  Early days I put up chicken wire to keep you safe, and started experimenting with growing grass on the balcony, beginning with ikea cutlery trays.  Then it was a child’s play pool that you ate that also had drainage issues and made your little garden and messy swamp.  I intended you to dig but you weren’t a digger.  You did, however, love to spend evenings sniffing your grass and nibbling or just sitting in the wind letting your fur blow.  I would find you out there in the rain, not only tolerating it but seeming to enjoy it.  You even hopped around in the snow.  

We discovered you loved apple branches at some point and procuring them became a sport.  First Cecilia obliged, then Joanna.  You met many children who adored you.  You were so sweet and cuddly.  

Tiger, it hurts my heart to think about how much you loved cuddles, and how much I needed them.  Bunbun loved to be petted but she did not insert herself in my armpit or enjoy being squeezed.  You spent almost every night of your life nestled in my armpit, little feet and chin on my arm, being petted with my right hand.  You sat here while I wrote on the computer.  If you were here now that’s where you would be. You weren’t a licker though, I don’t think you really understood the concept of skin.  But if I rubbed your ears then you couldn’t stop licking. I loved sharing a bed with you, and when you sat at the end of the bed to watch TV.  A few times you made the 77cm jump from the floor to my chest.  Once you did it for a banana I foolishly tried to eat lying in bed.  You were a superhero.

On hot days you used to take naps on the cold stone windowsill, leaving a tiny puddle of condensation where your nose was.  You would always want to go outside, bonking your nose on the window to test its solidness.  I sat down on the floor yesterday and saw the marks that are still there.  I cannot see cleaning that window ever again.

Your little bonks were your way of judging the world around you.  I regularly got bonked with a little wet nose on my leg, a reminder that while I was standing by the fridge, so were you.  Occasionally, if you were upset that you weren’t getting food fast enough, you would scratch your useless paws on the drop of my foot or pull on my sock with your teeth.  All is forgiven.

What you liked to eat could fill a novel.  You have eaten endless apple branches and leaves and grass, so many types of pellets, fresh blueberries, frozen strawberries, a bite of every banana I have ever eaten, the ends of my cucumbers from my salads.  I once thought you could exercise moderation if I grew herbs on the shelves.  Not so.

The times you would jump on the shelves were ridiculous, particularly the time you decided to just sit there like a little sculpture, having pushed the shelf’s original contents to the floor.  You liked to squeeze under the table, once served yourself on the platter on my footstool, but mostly enjoyed flopping against the front door in the shade.  

You were so incredibly clever, Tiger.  I bought you puzzles meant for dogs and you solved them immediately.  I bought you so many things for you to forage treats in.  If I left food or garbage bags at the front door they would be attacked with precision.  If the fridge opened you would sprint.  You could climb the wall of your cage and you once jumped to the top of the washing machine.  Your way of exploring was often to sprint at things.  How could a little rabbit who spent most of his life so sick have so much life in him?

I didn’t name you. In retrospect I realised I may have read the website wrong and the breeder didn¨t fully understand what I was asking, but you seemed to fit the photo of a rabbit on the website named Tiger, and that was your name.  Not a name I would have chosen, but you were a Tiger in every way.  

You met your rabbit best friend quite late in life but I am so happy you did.  You approached Ithaca in the same way as you did most things, by running at him, and freaked out that gentle soul a little bit, but you quickly fell in love.  It is such a relief to know that you had company in your final years and final months as we shuttled the two of you back and forth.  I am sorry I didn’t give you the comfort of another rabbit your entire life.  I might have been selfish.  I wanted your love for myself.  Remembering you two napping together, Ithaca protectively putting his chin on you, or hand on you, or ear on you, makes me wonder if sweet gentle Ithaca knew you were suffering and was taking care of you.  I know he will miss you terribly.

As for me, Tiger, the amount of love I have for you is indescribable.  The thought of life without you is terrible.  Even though I tried not to love you, I was helpless.  You were my buddy, my comfort, my constant companion and my joy.  All I had to do was look at you and I felt better.  But your cuddles… they made me feel like you loved me as much as I loved you.  You are the only rabbit I have ever known that seemed to enjoy being held like a baby, and my baby you were.

I hope I can memorise how your chin felt when I rubbed it, how your tongue felt with it licked my arm, the weight of you on my shoulder, the texture of the fur on your little white tummy and little white tail and the velvety fur under your chin.  I hope I can remember the smell of your head, and the curve of your ears, and how your fur changed colours from bottom to top.  I hope I can remember everything about you Tiger.  You deserve to be remembered.  I cannot believe the rest of my life will be spent without you.

You touched so many people.  I am so thankful you had time with Martina, and Natasha, and Cecilia and Ellie and Bastian and everyone else you met.

I don’t know how to walk into our apartment without saying hello to you, how to open a fridge without the sound of little feet running, how to wake up and not see you.  What do I do without you?  How do I live?

At the beginning of your final day, which should not be how we remember our five years together, you were fine.  I thank god that I was home the whole day, that you spent the previous day with your best friend Ithaca, that I wasn’t away down south like I was the previous day, or at a store or at the gym.  I know you woke up feeling okay and that you ate pellets.  I know you had lettuce the night before.  You had a good life until you didn’t.  But at 13:21, nearly :22, because I have the camera, you came running for me with such a start that I got up immediately.  I knew something was off, that something had scared you, because of the speed of your run, and you ran right for me, sliding around the corner.  I thank you for doing this, my love, because even if it’s not true it allows me to believe that when you knew something was wrong and felt very sick, you ran to your mommy.

You kept on trying to lie down and get comfortable, but would get back up frantically, then try again.  This was scary. I am happy I did not hesitate in getting you to a vet or registering that something was very wrong.  Still, I hoped that you had just been terrified by a sound, and picked you up and brought you into bed.  This was our last cuddle as we knew it.  You settled a bit in my arms, then abruptly got up, turned completely around to your normal position and settled again.  This alone was wrong, quite literally upside down.  I put Ithaca in your cage, took out your carrier, brushed my teeth, dressed, and ran.  I knew it was a Saturday and I knew we had limited and worrying options, but called vets around the country while on our way to Bagarmossen.  

I sat on the floor of the front seat of the bus with you on the seat, as you tried to get comfortable and I petted you.  This continued at the vet until you began to tire, and started sipping water compulsively.  My perception of time is cloudy from this horrible day but this sipping went on for hours.  I could offer you no other comfort other than to lie with you on the floor in a pile of blankets I asked for.  I was relieved that you pooped and peed and that your abdominal x-rays came back clear… but something was obviously extremely wrong and with no CT we will never know what.  

Around maybe 6pm you became weak and your head began to nod towards the water bowl.  I called the vet in, and we thought that maybe you were just tired from being frantic and in pain.  I tried to feed you once.  I still don’t think you swallowed.  Your little head was droopy and I suddenly knew.  This is when I begged the vets to stop you from suffering.  

You died in my arms, fighting and trying to get back up until the end, far too weak to do so.  You died with your little eyes looking at mine, while I cried and held you, crying that I was sorry, that I loved you, that it was okay and you could rest.  And then I stroked you for two hours while you became stiff and cold, when your little jaw no longer felt like yours, when your little ears no longer flopped sideways when I rubbed between them, while the back of your neck where I rubbed so many times held your head fixed in place.  You were so beautiful.  I gently made a pawprint with some black paint and took fur from your funny little tail, your soft tummy and your chest.  You died with a little bit of the food you couldn’t swallow on your lip.  I tried to wipe it away.  

I know time will fade this pain but I don’t want it to.  The pain makes me feel connected to you.  I don’t want this gulf between us to grow wider.  

I love you so very much Tiger.  Mommy loves you so very much. I forgive you for the peeing, and the eating, and the destroying.  I thank god that you did it.  I thank god I have these reminders that you were here.  Please forgive me for not being more aggressive in trying to save you, for not noticing times you were in pain, for the days when I didn’t cuddle you when you might have wanted a cuddle, for the time I didn’t spend with you.  I’m sorry I let you suffer so much.  I thought we could save you.  Thank you for being my friend, for getting me through some of the worst times of my life, for filling our home with calm and joy, for giving me a reason to carry on.  Thank you for running for your mommy when you felt so sick, for cuddling with me one last time in our bed, for letting me be with you when you died.  I love you so much, Tiger.  I love you so much.  I’m sorry.