"forgive life"

Bunny hasn't been around of late.  if you remember, she's retired.  her mom, me, no longer works at Build-A-Bear - sad, sad thing with her store closing for economic reasons.

now i sell children's shoes.  tough life there.  been written of.  no need to rehash.  nothing's changed.

but Bunny wanted to write to all of her readers.  she's never spoken before, written in her own words.  she's always allowed me to speak to her life.  but she wanted to - for the first time ever.  so here she is:  the Bun

hi.  it's me, Beach Bunny, Bunny, or just the Bun.  it's been quite the adjustment being left at home now.  i hate to see mom go off alone, out there in the world.  she has to drive so very far from home.  and i worry, especially when she has to close the store and it gets really late at night.

 one night she didn't get home until after 2 in the morning.

she was so tired and, here's a secret.  it was the first time i actually slept with mom.

she usually has me sit in my special place on my special pillow beside her bed, next to Dragon,

but she was so tired that night, and filled, literally filled to the brim with anxiety, that she held me close, and cried a bit, and had me sleep with her.

i comforted her all night.  after she was finally asleep, i whispered out loud in her ear so her heart could hear, about how much i love her.  about how much her children love her, and especially about how much her Dragon loves her.

so what does a Bun do alone in the home?

ears up and i help my mom.  i vacuum for her and i plump pillows.

 i take care of my pony friends my mom made. i love them so much.  they are a fun group

and we run around the apartment like crazy chasing mom's scotties.  exercise is very important. 

 i have quiet times, too, sitting and reading to my own little puppy, Snowball.

 and i wait for my mom to come home, home where she's loved and is safe.

see my eyes?  see the anxiousness i hold in my heart when she is gone?

i'm going to tell you something, maybe it's a secret, i'm not sure, but mom read this short story.

mom reads to try and relax and she's going through a lot of old books of hers.  Oscar Wilde is a favorite.  she just reread "The Canterville Ghost" because, as she told me, "Bun, there is poetry hidden in the prose."

her favorite part of the book is Sir Simon's soliloquy about death.

"Death must be so beautiful.  To life in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to the silence.  To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow.  To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace."

 mom read that part to me out loud and then she was quiet, not reading, not talking, just thinking.  and then she said this to me, "i miss him, Bunny.  i think about him all the time.  i'm not sure if i'm supposed to, or if i am to fight that.  but i can't fight any longer.  i'm not a fighter by nature.  i'm a re-router.  i do things my own way.  i have to.  'to thine own self be true.'  Shakespeare told the truth on that one. you can't lie to yourself.'

i stared at her in my own inscrutable way and she said, "no, i'm not thinking about dying dying, like, you know, dying, but i do think about being with him when my time comes.  and i think about being at peace.  i'm searching for it and i have come to sort of believe that peace is our journey, or at least it's mine.  i have moments of peace, but not a life of peace.  i wonder if anyone does.  i do have things that i am upset about - things that have happened to me throughout my life and that's the part of Sir Simon's speech i was thinking about.  forgiving life.  'to forgive life.'  i need to try and do that."

so i have spilled the beans.  mom is a deep thinker.  she is always trying to be a better person as she calls it.  and she is always thinking philosophically.  about everything.  even me.

which is why she went ahead and let me write this time.

because mom and me, we're sympatico.  we're kindred souls.

just like her and her Dragon.

btw, he's a truly lovely person.  i know that for a fact.  i've met him; seen him when he checks in on mom.  she doesn't know.  she's not really looking for signs.  she doesn't think she deserves them so she doesn't anticipate them.  but being the Bun, you know, THE BUN, i have that special gift.  

i've become Real, as in "The Velveteen Rabbit" Real.  and with becoming real, you get special gifts.

seeing the Dragon is one of them.

so to anyone out there who grieves, i hope you believe me when i say this. 

you are loved.

you are watched over.

you are being waited on.  {or for.  i can never get that one right.}

as mom sometimes writes,

peace to all who read.

peace and light to all who grieve.