My daughter is thirty-six years old and from the time she was old enough to walk, has been dragging animals home. She would promise with all her heart that she would take care of them and eventually I would give in.After a few days she would become bored and start neglecting them,so then it became my job.Each time this happened, I would swear, never again. But it did and always ended the same. I've nursed old sick cats back to health, raised an abandoned pot bellied pig with it's toenails painted pink into a monster that chased me around the back yard trying to kill me, kept a foal with diarrhea in my back yard, feeding it dozens of raw eggs until it too regained health,dragged a huge white rabbit in a harness and an earring with me to work everyday. I've chased gerbils, tame mice and every other creature on the planet around the house, sometimes not ever finding them and finding others dried up under the fridge months later, but the one that really topped them all was the rabbit she brought home a couple of years ago. My daughter works with horses here in Kentucky and one day while exercising one of them in a hay field, she spotted a newborn motherless rabbit. Of course her first instinct was to bring it home and try to raise it, but after a day or so it was, "Oh mom will you try to keep it alive"? She knew all along that I couldn't turn my back on this tiny helpless creature. I found a cardboard box and some soft rags for a bed and placed it in my kitchen close to the stove. Not knowing what on earth to feed a wild rabbit, I finally decided on a can of baby formula that my youngest daughter had left behind. A feeding schedule was set up for day and night. I held the tiny little rabbit and with an eye dropper squeezed drops of thick formula down it's throat.One night I dozed off during the feeding and woke up to find us both soaked in cold sticky formula. I felt I was fighting a losing battle as it grew weaker and weaker and a few days later I was ready to give up and let the little rabbit die. So that night after trying to feed it, I decided to let nature take it's course and went to bed. The next morning I got up expecting to have a "rabbit funeral"later that day,but when I walked over to the box, I couldn't believe what I saw. Standing up on his little hind legs and looking hungry was "My Little Baby Rabbit". I was never so surprized and happy.From that day on he drank his formula first from a spoon,then a day or so later from a bowl. I also started giving him bits of carrot and lettuce, then a week or so later weaned him off the baby formula. As he got healthier, I knew the day was coming when I would have to set him free and I dreaded it.I had become so attached to this little miracle, but summer was coming and he seemed to be getting restless, so one morning after telling my husband good-bye as he left for work,I carried the little rabbit to the edge of the field in back of our house and turned him loose.He sat for a moment, his little nose twitching, then took off. The last I saw of him was his little cotton ball tail as he went out of sight. I slowly made my way back to the house and cleaned out his box,holding back tears as I threw his dish and bedding in the trash,but I knew I had done the right thing and after a while I felt better. Night came and I finished my chores, took a shower and watched t.v. as usual,but when bedtime came, I felt like one of my children was missing. Sleep wouldn't come until the wee hours. The next morning after my husband left for work, I carried my coffee out to the deck to watch the sun come up. Just as I started to sit down, I caught a flash of something out of the corner of my eye. Thinking it was one of the many neighborhood cats that hung out around our house, I ignored it and sat down. Then again I heard it and this time got up to investigate. There beside the deck standing on his hind legs was my rabbit looking for his breakfast. I started talking to him and he came closer. I went back inside the house to get his usual meal and he waited on me. For a few weeks he never ventured far from the house and was there every morning for his meals. We enjoyed this little rabbit so much and he kept us laughing as our grandkids chased him around the yard. Then one morning I went to feed him and he was gone. A week went by and no rabbit. I just had to get used to the fact that he had probally gone for good this time. As I was about to leave for the grocery store early one morning,I stepped out the door and you'll never believe what was sitting in the yard by the deck. There was my rabbit and he wasn't alone.He had found himself a girlfriend and brought her home.Of course she was wild and scared,but day after day they came back and now I had two rabbits to feed. My neighbors began calling me, "Rabbit Woman". They stayed close by for the better part of the summer and then one day in late summer they left for good. I saw them at the edge of the field a couple of times and I knew I had done a good thing by setting him free. Winter came and with it, the holidays and the rabbits faded from my mind. Then one day in early spring as I was leaving the house again,I opened my door and almost fell over a huge rabbit sitting close to the steps. I scared him and vise versa. He ran and never stopped until he reached the corner of the field,then turned once and was gone.This was the last time I ever saw him, or at least alive. In the fall I was walking to the mailbox and spotted something beside the road. It was a dead, almost dried up rabbit and somehow I just knew this was the rabbit I had struggled so hard to raise and again my eyes filled with tears. He had given us so much pleasure on those cool summer mornings. Had give back much more than I had ever expected. It just goes to show you that it's the little things in life that make us happy. Time heals all hurts and pain and now I seldom ever think about that little ball of fur, but then again every once in a while late in the evening, sometimes I swear I see him at the edge of the field, but a closer look proves to be just a brown clump of grass. © 2001, Shirley Delk Roberts

A True Story