I am a Sunshine: An Obituary for an Unremarkable Pet Rabbit

Sunshine “Little Girl” Rabbit

On the evening of October 28, 2013, Sunshine was euthanized at Symphony Veterinary Center in New York after suffering from a high-grade sarcoma for five months.

I don’t know when Sunshine was born. I don’t know who took care of her first. I doubt she came into this world planned, or if she did, it was poor planning. Her head was tiny and pointed with small ears and dark red eyes. The rest of her was a large lump of champagne-colored fur that didn’t look like it belonged on the same rabbit. She looked like a mistake, and maybe she was treated like one. In any case, her personality became a bit misshapen. She was scared of people (more so than other house rabbits), and she would readily bark and thump her back leg to show displeasure. Maybe these traits landed her in a Connecticut pound, or maybe someone just bought an Easter rabbit and didn’t feel like keeping it past August.

Sunshine resting in the kitchen.

Sunshine lived in the pound for a while, but it did not agree with her. Sunshine hated to be cornered, which is the default condition in a small square cage.  When Sunshine felt trapped, she would bark and lunge at the intruder, attempting to bite them. This self-defense predilection landed her in the pound’s death row, after having bitten a staff member. She was deemed too much of a danger to keep alive. Thankfully, the organization Hop-A-Long Hollow saved her from being euthanized and took her into their care in their no kill shelter in Norwalk, Connecticut. She lived there for two years without being adopted.

Seven years ago, I brought Staten, a lop bunny, to Hop-A-Long Hollow to find him a companion. He was a moody bunny who did not like to be touched, especially on his ears. I hoped a friend would make his life better. But making a friend is a hard thing to accomplish, especially after you have become an adult. A rabbit’s natural inclination is to fight unfamiliar rabbits.  It’s a long and sometimes difficult process to convince both rabbits that they are not hostile enemies, but are instead part of the same warren. Thankfully, the people at Hop-A-Long Hollow will do the hard part of bonding for you, so I left Staten with them to find a friend. I came back a week later to find cuddled up next to Staten a weird little bunny named Sunshine. They stayed cuddled up as I drove them home, as I moved apartments three times, and as I lost loved ones and gained new ones.

It took Sunshine a long time to warm up to the other rabbit in the house, Spot. I kept them separated from each other for many years before I finally felt safe enough to let them interact. Spot and Sunshine battled each tearing out huge clumps of hair from the other. After a few tense minutes, Spot came out as top bunny. Sunshine was downgraded to bottom of the pecking order, the under-rabbit, if you will. There didn’t seem to be hard feelings though. For many years all three bunnies slept together in a big heap of fur. Sometimes all three noses would touch as they slept; their bodies fanned out in such a way that it looked like I had a tri-force of bunnies. Over the years, Sunshine’s fur turned from being very course into being very soft and silky. I don’t know if it was the food or the friendly grooming that caused the change.

Sunshine hides under Staten's ear. Spot is the white fur on the right.

I’m not sure if Sunshine’s personality ever changed as much as her pelt. She barked. She tried to bite. But she also enjoyed her life, running all over the apartment, eating hay, and scavenging for salad leftovers. She even allowed me to pet her -- on her own terms, of course. What did change was Staten’s personality. What was once a moody, unhappy rabbit that wouldn’t let you touch his head, turned into a happy and affectionate bunny. Suddenly he allowed me to pet him. Sunshine taught Staten that touching isn’t just an act of cruelty, but also an act of kindness. Imagine how awful life would be without learning that simple lesson.

In July of this year, Dr. Levison found and operated on a malignant tumor in Sunshine’s shoulder. I am proud to report that despite post-operation pain, she managed to return to her roots and she terrorized a new veterinary assistant with her barks, bites, and lunges. Sunshine never fully recovered from the operation and the tumor grew back quickly. Jack Karp and I kept her at home with her family for as long as we felt was kind. Spot was particularly attentive and often kept her company as she lost mobility.

Sunshine, Staten, and Spot in a heap of fur. Sunshine's scar is visible.

Sunshine wasn’t a good pet. She looked weird. She didn’t like to be picked up. She peed outside the litter box. She had really bad coordination. She liked to destroy carpets and bite holes in clothing. Luckily for her, I never really thought of her as my pet. I didn’t pick her out -- Staten did. I didn’t need her to live up to typical pet standards. I didn’t need her to fill any emotional needs. I just wanted her to make the other rabbits’ lives better, which she accomplished.

Societal standards turned Sunshine into a barking, biting disappointment. She couldn’t live up to her name at all. She was such a failure that she was going to be killed because nobody wanted to put up with such a crappy pet. But Sunshine’s life wasn’t really a failure. Even though she’s gone, I can still go up to Staten and rub his ears because she showed him how to be a more calm and loving being. The only thing inherently wrong with Sunshine was that she lived in a world where success was defined by the humans who held power over her.

Sunshine’s body was small, her years on this earth were brief, but her story is worth telling because her life is a synecdoche of our own lives. I am a Sunshine. Many of us are Sunshines. We are weird looking, or our work isn’t good enough, or we are poor, or we are lonely, or we have trouble using the litter box. We think the way out is to stop being a Sunshine. We try to do what we’re told, make lots of money, have lots of friends, and do whatever it is to be a success. We try, and we fail, and it hurts, and we get locked up in a pound. Some of us even kill ourselves in direct and indirect ways.

We forget that the only thing inherently wrong with being a Sunshine is that we live in a world where we let other people determine what it means to be a success or a failure. Sunshine was not a failure because she peed outside the litter box. We are not failures just because we can’t live up to other people’s standards. Sunshine was a success because she taught me that I had been looking for my own worth in the wrong place my entire life. I was looking for it where other people told me it should be. I learned from Sunshine that I had to throw out other people’s definition of success before I could stop being a failure, before I could even see that I had been walking on sunshine the entire time.

Sunshine is survived by her husband Staten, her other husband Spot, and her “owner” Lisa Reinke.