Last night, Easter Sunday, The Man and I were sitting around watching a movie, when my daughter Genevieve burst through the front door. She had clutched in her hands a tiny baby bunny, the size of a fluffy little tennis ball.
“Mom, look! I found a baby bunny! The cat was chasing it across the front yard and I rescued it.” She breathlessly held out her prize for all to see. Of course my magical daughter resurrects a baby bunny on Easter Sunday, because that is how we roll over here at my house.
Just a few days before, I told The Man that if he hung around my place often enough he would see some cool stuff. He would see some magic, maybe even some miracles.
“Let’s keep him and name him “Dorito,” said Genevieve, who is just about to turn fifteen. Dorito seemed an uninspired name for a Miracle Bunny, resurrected from the jaws of Cat Death and brought into the house alive and perfectly well at 10 O’clock at night on Easter Sunday.
“Whatever you like hunny,” was my response, but in the quiet of my own mind, he is Miracle Bunny. The bunny was fine and totally unhurt which is also a miracle having a gone a few rounds in the front yard with my cat Pixie.
But he was just a wee little thing and I had no idea what to do for the care and feeding of a lost baby bunny.
I appealed to The Man. At first glance, he seems like Encyclopedia Man, with his vast array of firsthand knowledge on pretty much any topic you can think up. But in his core he is actually a Renaissance Man, truly capable of whatever he puts his hand to and more. I have yet to find something he can’t do with total competence, wry humor and a fair share of genuine humility.
Surely he knows all about the care and feeding of lost and freaked out infant bunnies. Turns out he does. He knew some and we Googled even more and then we had a plan. Keep Miracle Bunny warm and feed him heavy cream through an eyedropper until we could get kitten replacement formula in the morning.
Shazam. Crisis averted.
I went to bed and The Man stayed up late, well into the small hours of the morning, tending Miracle Bunny, feeding him through the eye dropper and keeping him warm. Patiently doing all that was necessary to fan the tiny flame of life flickering inside that baby bunny.
When I woke up early this morning, the house was quiet and peaceful and rather full. Kids overflowing onto couches, plus the two dogs, two cats and a Miracle Bunny, all filling my small house to the rafters. I had a deep moment of love, appreciation and gratitude as I checked on Miracle Bunny. He was alive and well, and still is, bless his fluttery little heart.
The miracle is love.
My house was filled to the brim with love this morning, so powerful and poignant that it stopped me in my tracks, breathless and trembling, my heart every bit as tremulous and bursting as Miracle Bunny’s.
Love is the miracle.
Genevieve’s love of life that prompted her to save MB to start with.
The humble outpouring of love from a gentle hearted man who lost a night’s sleep to do the right thing by a tiny, new life, smaller even then the palm of his hand.
My love for my family, with all the many stray children, people and pets that I have happily absorbed into my house, my life and my heart.
And love of the life for the world itself. That is what spring feels like to me and maybe even Easter too. Even more so after the brutal winter that we had, that held the energy of death, cold and for so long and with such icy determination.
Now life in all her juicy and unstoppable vigor has broken that frozen cycle. Trees bud and swell and flowers push their joyful way out of the cold earth, turning their faces into the sun. Rabbits have their babies and sweet teenage girls save them in the nick of time.
And here in my corner of the world two totally unique and difficult to match people, only slightly bruised and a little worse for wear, find each other and love too, totally by happenstance.
What a miracle!
PS- We never did finish the movie!
