# Does it ever get any easier?



## Ainsleys_mommy (Feb 6, 2012)

It's been 2 years since I lost my Ainsley and still, every time I think about her, it feels like the hole in my heart gets blown back apart. Does it ever get any easier? Honestly, I think I need professional help for this.


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## ZRabbits (Feb 6, 2012)

You had a bond with your rabbits that everyone hear strives for. My heartfelt condolences for your loss. I haven't lost a rabbit, but I have dogs that I still get choked up thinking of him after 15 years. 

Hoping this sorrow turns to sweet memories after a time. 

K


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## Nancy McClelland (Feb 6, 2012)

We still miss our dogs, cats, and bunnies that have passed. Can't really say if it does get easier, but we strive to remember the happy times and the love we shared. Don't know if that helps much but it's how I cope.


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## LakeCondo (Feb 6, 2012)

If you're a book person, I suggest looking at the Amazon listings under "pet loss grief". Most that are listed let people look at the first few pages, so you can get an idea of what they offer.

And on-line support, like here at RO, can help too.


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## Ainsleys_mommy (Feb 6, 2012)

I ordered "When all that remains is love" last night. HRS recommended it.


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## gmas rabbit (Feb 6, 2012)

No I don't think that it ever gets easier, especially if you have lost your heart rabbit. We lost Benjamin at Christmas and although I am able to remember him with love and fondness, I also have days that the loss is unbearable. We got a new bunny, Harley was weaned by his bunny mom too early so we got him at 6.5 weeks. We thought he was alright, but he has special needs. Somewhere along the line he has ruptured his knee and has reduced mobility in that leg. Days that he is really bad, I wonder why when I had the perfect rabbit, fat, loving, friendly Mr Wonderful I ended up like this, and then I remember that he is just a little guy needing alot of love. Benjamin actually would have like him. So, I put one foot in front of the other, remember Benjamin with joy and tears and go on with the care of another, different but really needing me.


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## SablePoint (Feb 6, 2012)

I know how you feel. In November last year, my 9 year old rabbit, Mr. Bun Bun, passed away and it still kills me. I keep having recurring dreams of the night Bun Bun died. Dreams like he didn't die instead, "it was another rabbit" or Bun Bun woke up. But only just to wake up to reality, not being able to wake up to see his adorable face looking up at me anymore. These dreams stress me out and make me cry and strangely, I've been waking up with tears down my face. I think I'm going to see a doctor.


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## jujub793 (Feb 6, 2012)

Pets are people too to those that love them and all the grieving processes Still have to be gone through before you can truly move on. But time is the healer, and memories will sustain you and eventually bring you comfort. It will get better, you just have to trust in that.


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## Ainsleys_mommy (Feb 7, 2012)

So I've bought the book, bought a memorial frame (etchedinmyheart.com- Bob has been great to work with and is putting exactly what I want on the frame), made an appt to see a grief counselor, and am planning on planting a flower garden in memory of Ainsley. I'm going to definitely plant Marigolds because for some reason they remind me of her. I feel like I'm on my way to being able to let her rest in peace.


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## ZRabbits (Feb 7, 2012)

*Ainsleys_mommy wrote: *


> So I've bought the book, bought a memorial frame (etchedinmyheart.com- Bob has been great to work with and is putting exactly what I want on the frame), made an appt to see a grief counselor, and am planning on planting a flower garden in memory of Ainsley. I'm going to definitely plant Marigolds because for some reason they remind me of her. I feel like I'm on my way to being able to let her rest in peace.


So glad to hear you found your way to turning your grief for Ainsley into something positive. They grab our heart and when they leave, there is such a hole. I love the garden idea. Hope you post pics of those beautiful Marigolds. 

K


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## MandyK (Feb 9, 2012)

It gets easier in the sense that it doesn't hurt as bad as the first day, but you will always feel a hole in your heart. I got professional help when I lost my dog of 16 years. It really helped. She showed me how to remember him and have him involved in my life everyday, so I would never feel like I was forgetting him or moving on from him. Lots of vets offer free or inexpensive grief counselling. Even though it has been a couple years, I would look into this. It could help make you feel a lot better, and there's nothing your bunny would have wanted more than for you to be happy.


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## MILU (Feb 9, 2012)

I'm so sorry for your loss!

When I lost my 1st bunny I couldn't accept it (although I've always tried not to keep crying for him, thinking I should let him rest *in peace*) and asked my mother to bring me another male bunny exactly like Fedorento (that was his name). It was very hard in the first weeks (esp the 2 first) because this new bunny behaved very differently... but soon our love got so strong that made me accept that my bunny Fedorento had to leave and rest. I transferred my love to my new bunny, MILU, and it worked very well. 
Some years later MILU left me too, and of course I miss him and I miss having that wonderful friend again, with whom I could communicate without words, but I accept a little better the fact that things happen when they have to. Of course there's the feeling that I wanted to have done more for him, I wanted to have shown more love, etc, but sometimes I guess he knows it and I'm very glad when he visits my dreams. He always has a very good message to tell me - that he's alive, and we'll meet and play again. 
THAT gives me strength to go on. A lot of my dreams come true and I trust them. I know we'll meet again, when the time is right.
I don't know if my belief is of any help.. 

Once I read a thread by someone who really missed her bunny too.. she was really, really upset.. turned out that she started to help bunnies in need, now she has a great organization to help bunnies and she's very happy! I myself try to help animals when I can. Not yet as much as that girl, but someday I hope I do. It certainly helps!


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## LakeCondo (Feb 10, 2012)

The older we get, the more losses we experience. But we have to know that those we've lost want us to be happy. And if we can do something in their name [even if we don't tell anyone that's why we're doing it] it helps.


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## SnowyShiloh (Feb 10, 2012)

My sweet Tallulah died almost 4 years ago (!) and I still cry whenever I think of her. Her death was the hardest thing I've gone through, by a long shot, even though both of my grandmothers have died and I've been through other tough things in my life. She was only 7 months old and was a very special bunny. My first bunny died at 7 years and although I loved him just as much as her, I always have felt that he had a nice, full life, while hers was cut so short. I've lost one other bunny, too, he died at 2 years after fighting EC for 6 months so I had time to get used to the idea of him dying and was very relieved that his death was fairly quick and painless and he didn't suffer from many of the things that EC bunnies get before they die.

Now I fear the day that my sweet Rory will die. He is my heart bunny and will be 5 next month. I know I will be completely shattered and devastated when it happens. I'm probably crazier about him than any other bunny (or animal) I've ever known.


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## Ainsleys_mommy (Feb 11, 2012)

What is EC?


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## SnowyShiloh (Feb 11, 2012)

Sorry for not being clear- EC is short for E. cuniculi, a brain parasite that most bunnies have been exposed to but that some get sick from (ear infections, etc) and a few get REALLY sick from and die, like Skyler


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## TinysMom (Feb 12, 2012)

It's been four years now since I've lost Tiny. Does it get easier - sometimes I think so - and then sometimes - I'll think of him and just "lose it".

So no...not always.


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## Nancy McClelland (Feb 13, 2012)

It's been 7 years since Commodore Stockton passed and a day doesn't go by that I don't think of my little Budha Boy. The thing I miss the most is when he'd jump up on my lap so he could help with the paper. Every time I hear Dire Straits "So far Away", I think of him and still think that it was so unfair having to say goodbye.


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## Ainsleys_mommy (Jul 4, 2012)

It's getting easier to think about Ainsley without feeling like the grief is going to overwhelm me. I am able to remember the happiness she brought me without lamenting the loss of it. I now have 16 bunnies and have decided to show Hollands, as well as Netherland Dwarfs. My rabbitry is named "Ainsley Willow Rabbitry" in honor of my baby girl. 

I keep getting signs from Ainsley that let me know she's still by my side, watching everything that's going on. We got Ainsley from a breeder by the last name of Albright. They stopped showing rabbits, so I just figured I'd never hear of them again. About 2 weeks ago I bought a rabbit from a lady about an hour from my home. Alice is a Netherland Dwarf, so isn't even the same breed as Ainsley (who was a Holland), and guess who the breeder of Alice was... Albright. Then guess which book Alice chewed up because her cage was too close to my bookcase.. The book "When Only the Love Remains." There were four other books touching her cage and that was the one she chewed up. Then I had a random dream about buying an old farm house and putting up a tire swing... The sign I bought for the rabbitry to display at shows depicts Ainsley under a willow tree with daffodils, and in the distance there's another willow tree with a tire swing! I didn't even say anything to the lady about having a tire swing, she just put it there on her own. 

You may think I'm crazy, but it's just too many coincidences in my opinion. I'm just glad I'm finally healing. It's not less painful, it's just more happiness to counteract the pain.


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## katherine at sacred stories (Jul 4, 2012)

Ainsley's Mommie--my heart goes out to you! So sorry for your loss and so happy that you seem to be doing so well now. 

I am coming to believe that there is something profoundly intense and spiritual about our connection when we're really bonded with a rabbit. I lost my precious bunny recently and I have been crying (and wailing) so much that I have also thought "maybe I need professional help." I don't think you're crazy at all...the "signs" you've experienced are beautiful and underscore how closely your spirits are entwined...I loved reading about it. Maybe Ainsley's spirit is at work:} Maybe she's going to come to you again (or has already)in another bunnie

It is wonderful that you're helping and loving so many rabbits now--it must be healing. It sounds like you're doing great. I'm not ready for a new rabbit yet but I do feel lost without a bunny running around my houseI have a little alter for my bunny, Scout, with pictures I've painted of her and memorials I've written and treats and toys and her water dish. Books have helped and this site is helping me to see I'm not alone in how I feel. But this loss is deep and, I guess, it will just take time. This poem sums it up for me: 

My heart still
aches with sadness
and secret tears still flow.
What it meant to loose you,
No one will ever know.

I'm not always ready to say the next poem, but when I can, it helps:

No coming, no going.
No after, no before.
I feel you close to me.
I release you to be free.
For I am in you 
and you are in me.

Thank you for sharing your story. Wishing you many more wonders and adventures! And Binkie Free, Ainsley!!!


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## LakeCondo (Jul 4, 2012)

Those are beautiful poems.

It doesn't matter if they [the happenings, not the poems] are coincidences or not. It's how you feel when they happen that's important.


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## tifenni (Jul 21, 2012)

To see a Buy WOW Gold orBuy Runescape Gold world in a granda of stand.And a heaven in a wild flower.Hold infinity in the palm your hand and eternity in an hour.


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## Sedgewick (Jul 21, 2012)

I don't know if we ever get over it. I lost Sedgewick on February 16 and I still cry over the loss. He was over 13 years and my best friend. He got sick in the autumn and the vet wanted to operate. I said no as it would not cure him but merely tell us what he had. On the day before he was grazing but he could not stand up for long. He had been that way for a while but he was good about it. As long as he could eat, drink, pee and poo I was okay with it. The day I put him down he did not want anything. Even his Metacam which he loved he refused.
I had him put down at 3 in the afternoon and then cremated at 4:30. Therein lies my worry. The vet had trouble finding the vein in the leg to inject him. Eventually he did and to this day I wonder if he actually euthanized him or Sedgewick had so much sedation in him he was limp. I took him to the crematorium and had a witness cremation.
Since that day there has been a scandal regarding cremations here in Victoria and on the Lower Mainland. People who pay for single cremations were not getting them but instead their animals were being put in with others. The crematorium I used was at the forefront of the scandal. Anyway its a long sad story and if anyone wants details please contact me.
As to getting over it. I know I won't. I have 4 other rabbits who are the world to me but they will never come close to being Sedgewick.
Bill Jesse


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## Sedgewick (Jul 21, 2012)

Ainsleys_mommy. Someone above wrote that there are signs and it is so true. It is also true that once a rabbit gets in your heart it changes you. I am not religious but am spiritual. At the moment Sedgewick passed an eagle came flying low over the vet's office and swooped right up. I did not see it but my wife did. It is an area where eagles do not normally fly. One morning a lone eagle was circling my backyard. We have eagles here but I had never seen one so low. A good friend had a dream that she saw Sedgewick and my late cat Charlee together in a field just walking. She stroked them both but felt nothing. She had never met Charlee.
A lady who runs a rabbit shelter told me I should write Sedgie a letter telling me how much I miss and love him. I did and then as instructed burned it. I wrote another asking him to let me know he is alright - to give me a sign. The weirdest thing happened. An outline of a rabbit head appeared on the face of my other male rabbit. (I have photos!) and it lasted about a week and never came back. Even now as I write I hear him behind me as he always was. There are signs.


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## pla725 (Jul 22, 2012)

I've had many rabbits for about 30 years on and off. Each rabbit was special in their own way. I have good memories of each. I remember Starbuck who went with me to college. He was my first rabbit. I've learned alot since then and still feel I don't know enough. 

I just lost three special rabbits in the past month. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it. But then what would I do with the others. I would feel bad if I had to give them up. I remember those who have gone on and keep them in my heart.


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